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English Literature. 



A HISTORICAL SKETCH OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES. 



By RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON" 

/ AND 

/v/6 WILLIAM HAND BROWNE. 




UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING COMPANY, 

NEW YORK and BALTIMORE. 

1873. 



^4 



Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

RICHARD MALCOLM JOHXSTON and WILLIAM HAND BROWNE, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



%Tnuisfe 
JA 4 1908 



Langs, Littlb & Hillman, 

printers, elf.ctrotypers and stkreotyfer8, 

108 to 114 Woostkr St., N. Y. 



PREFACE, 



The course of English reading usually prescribed in the 
higher schools and colleges, or spontaneously undertaken by 
the student, is determined, for the most part, by his advance- 
ment, his special tastes, or the relation it may bear to his 
other studies. Hence, such a course, however profitable, 
gives him no just idea of English literature as a connected 
whole — an almost unbroken stream flowing through English 
history, influenced by it, and in turn reacting upon it, as a 
river cuts and shapes the valley which gives it existence and 
determines its course — at every epoch showing its connection 
with the historical past, its intimate * association with all 
contemporary events, and even, by anticipation, reaching 
fe *ward into the future. 

The mere attempt to show this thoroughly, would demand 
ossession of the highest critical powers, and profound 
a :xtensr've historical knowledge; and the work, when ac- 
^OxiPlisher.i ? would be one for the mature scholar, not those 
for whom this manual is intended. But this id,ea and plan 
have been kept in view in its preparation. 

While the continuity of our literature is never left out of 
sight, it has > n divided, for the sake of perspicuity, into 
periods, exhib. ^ng each some important difference, in mat- 
ter, form, or tendency, from the rest. The relation of each 
period to that which preceded it, and the influences, exter- 
nal and internal, which determined it, are briefly indicated. 
As it would be impossible, especially in the later periods, to 
do even the scantest justice to all the eminent writers of 
each, and as a mere enumeration of names and dates is worse 



4: PEE FACE. 

than useless here, our aim has been to distinguish, as far as 
possible, in every period that particular branch of letters 
which in it attained special development, or, by more per- 
fectly exhibiting the influences above alluded to, may justly 
be singled out as most characteristic of that period; and to 
illustrate this by the writers who best represent it 

Our aim in this work has not been profundity, or ingenui- 
ty, but clearness; and in its preparation we have had in 
special view students who have just reached the point where 
they begin to take genuine interest in the reading that en- 
larges knowledge and stimulates thought. For such we have 
endeavored to provide a faithful, if meagre, outline-map of 
the wide and fair domain awaiting them; an outline not 
difficult to fix in the memory, and serving to locate and eluci- 
date subsequent irregular or desultory reading. At the same 
time we trust that more advanced students, and general read- 
ers, may find in it interest, and, possibly, instruction. On 
the other hand, if any parts are beyond the comprehension 
of the younger student, the teacher can easily explain them. 

It is almost superfluous to add that in neither the design 
nor the execution of this manual do the compilers lay any 
claim to originality. They have freely availed thei:nselve£i of 
whatever suited their purpose, in the best critical a^dnis- 
torical writers to whom they had access. 

E. M. J. 

W. H. B. 

Baltimore, April, 1872. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGB 

The Revival of Letters 9 

CHAPTER II. 

First Literature of England 19 

Bede — Alfred the Great. 

CHAPTER III. 
The Norman Conquest 24 

CHAPTER IV. 

Early English Authors 32 

Layamon — Robert of Gloucester — Laurence Minot — Sir John 
Maundeville — William Langland — John Wycliffe. 

CHAPTER Y. 
Petrarch and Boccaccio 41 

CHAPTER VI. 

Chaucer , 45 

Geoffrey Chaucer — William Caxton. 

CHAPTER VII. 

The Reformation 57 

Sir Thomas More — Sir Thomas W r yat — Earl of Surrey. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Accession of Elizabeth 63 

Roger Ascham — Thomas Wilson — Thomas Sackville, Lord 
Buckhurst. 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

Spenser and Raleigh , 76 

Edmund Spenser — Sir Walter Raleigh. 

CHAPTER X. 

The Elizabethan Period 84 

Nicholas Udall — Christopher Marlowe. 

CHAPTER XI 
Shakspeare 97 

CHAPTER XII. 

Elizabethan Dramatists 107 

Ben Jonson — Beaumont and Fletcher — Philip Massinger — 
Ford — Webster — Shirley — Chapman. 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Ballad Poetry 121 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Prose Writers 126 

John Lyly — Richard Hooker — William Gilbert — Francis 
Bacon — Sir Thomas Browne. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Theologians 138 

James I. — Jeremy Taylor — Isaac Barrow. 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Milton 148 

CHAPTER XVII. 

The Restoration 159 

Abraham Cowley — Samuel Butler — Sir John Suckling — Earl 
of Dorset — Charles Sedley — Richard Lovelace — Edmund 
Waller. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Comedy 170 

William Wycherley — William Congreve — Farquhar — Van- 
brugh — Thomas Otway — Nathaniel Lee. 



CONTENTS. 7 

CHAPTER XIX. 

PAGE 

The Philosophers 177 

Thomas Hobbes — Ralph. Cudworth — John Locke — George 
Berkeley — Robert Boyle — Sir Isaac Newton — Edmund Halley. 

CHAPTER XX 

The Classic Age. The Poets 190 

John Dryden — Alexander Pope — Matthew Prior — Thomas 
Parnell — Edward Young — John Gay — James Thomson — 
Thomas Gray — William Collins — Oliver Goldsmith — Thomas 
Chatterton — William Cowper. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

The Essayists 214 

William Temple — Richard Bentley — Joseph Addison — Rich- 
ard Steele — Samuel Johnson. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Political Writers. . 233 

Jonathan Swift — Daniel Defoe. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Political Writers 250 

Junius — Edmund Burke. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Historians * 257 

David Hume — Dr. William Robertson — Edward Gibbon. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Rise of the Novel 268 

John Bunyan. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Novelists 278 

Samuel Richardson — Henry Fielding — Tobias Smollett. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

TnE Novelists 287 

Laurence Sterne — Oliver Goldsmith. 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

PAGE 

The Nineteenth Century. The Poets 301 

William Wordsworth — Samuel Taylor Coleridge — Robert 
Souther. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

The Nineteenth Century. The Poets 325 

Lord Byron — Percy Bysshe Shelley — John Keats — George 
Crabbe — Walter Savage Landor — Thomas Campbell — Thomas 
Moore — Leigh Hunt — Samuel Rogers — Felicia Dorothea 
Hemans — Letitia Elizabeth Landon. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The Nineteenth Century. The Essayists 346 

Charles Lamb — William Hazlitt — Thomas De Quincey — 
Francis Jeffrey — Lord Brougham — Rev. Sydney Smith — Sir 
James Mackintosh — Rev. Thomas Malthus — Playfair — 
Thomas Babington Macaulay — William Gilford — John G. 
Lockhart — Georg e Canning — Southey — Hookham Frere — 
Jeremy Bentham — John Wilson. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Nineteenth Century. The Novelists 364 

Sir Walter Scot£— William Beckford — Mrs. Anne Radcliffe — 
Maria Edgeworth — Mary Russel Mitford. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Contemporary Writers 376 

Alfred Tennyson — Robert Browning — Elizabeth Barrett Brown- 
ing — Arthur Hugh Clough — Matthe w Arnold — William 
Morris — Jean Ingelow — Algernon Charles Swinburne — 
Charles Dickens — William Makepeace Thackeray — Charlotte 
Bronte — Marian C. Evans — Thomas Babington Macaulay — 
Thomas Carlyle — George Grote — James Anthony Froude — 
John Ruskin. 



ENG-LISH LITERATURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



Hostility of the Christians and Barbarians to Ancient Learning — Cas- 
siodorus and BoSthius — The Monasteries — Scarcity of Books — The 
Arabs the first to introduce Greek Letters into Europe. 

The revival of letters is a most appropriate phrase to 
designate the impulse which learning received after its long 
neglect during the dark ages. Ancient learning, however 
great were its achievements, and however confident it may 
have been of eternal duration, died as other things mortal 
die, and was buried, together with almost everything, great 
and small, which it had accomplished. The world can never 
estimate what it has lost by the destruction of the works of 
ancient genius. The comparatively little which has been 
preserved of them is sufficient to convince us that we cannot 
too much admire the men and the ages which produced 
them; nor can we too deeply lament the brutality of those 
barbarians, and the fanaticism of those early Christians, who 
were alike eager to annihilate everything which the exquisite 
civilisation of the ancients had achieved. 

It is no wonder that after the introduction of Christianity, 
learning should have had aims different from those which it 
had formerly possessed. In losing those illustrations which it 
had borrowed from mythology, it lost the greater part of its 
wonderful beauty. The deeds and sufferings of heroes, their 
struggles with fate and the gods, the loves and quarrels of 

1* 



10 THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS. 

the latter among themselves, and their friendly or hostile 
interposition in human affairs, were the burden of ancient 
song. The ideas of men on all the affairs of every-day life 
were colored by the religions of the times. Christianity op- 
posed itself to these religions. However they might har- 
monize among themselves, they could never be tolerated by 
that faith in whose revelation their rites were condemned as 
idolatrous. It remained, therefore, for that faith only to 
solemnly denounce those idolatries, and wait for the day 
when it could acquire the power to destroy them. At first 
simple, pure, unselfish, teaching the forgiveness of injuries 
and universal love, it attracted only the unlearned and the 
poor; but when it became the established religion of the 
empire, and learning, with every other instrument of prog- 
ress, became subordinate to its designs, the human mind 
found it impossible in the new images which it was now to 
work, to rival, at once, those masterpieces which a former 
religion and a former civilisation had wrought. This was 
the case even with those of the pious who were sufficiently 
learned, liberal, and tolerant of paganism, to be willing to 
allow it to live unmolested, and even to aspire to rival its 
literary productions. For the thoughts which had been in- 
spired by the belief in gods and demigods, and in the sacred- 
ness of particular places, as the abodes of fauns, nymphs, 
and satyrs, were made to give place to thoughts of practical 
piety, of doing good and avoiding evil ; thoughts which re- 
quired time to be moulded into images of poetic beauty. It 
is no wonder, then, that even among these, the writings of 
heathen authors should cease to be admired and studied, and 
finally be forgotten. 

But neglect was not the only fate of ancient learning. 
The ardent votaries of the new religion, in their hatred of 
the old, were not content with destroying its altars, demol- 
ishing its temples, and forbidding its worship, but sought to 



LOSS OF ANCIENT LITERATURE. U 

destroy every relic of that genius which it had inspired 
After the fall of Greece, its literature and that of Rome had 
found an asylum in Egypt. The library of Alexandria, 
begun by the Ptolemies, had reached to seven hundred 
thousand volumes. In it were almost all the great works of 
the studies of past ages : epic poems, tragedies, comedies, 
lyrics, philosophy, orations, histories, both of external events 
and of the workings of the human mind. Of this magnifi- 
cent collection nearly the whole was destroyed in the fury 
of that intolerance which prevailed throughout the empire 
during the reign of Theodosius the Great (a. d. 379-395). 
Of the value of that which was lost, we can conceive only by 
our knowledge of the value of that which was rescued. If 
the question whether the ancients or the moderns were the 
greater, is yet unsettled; if, in some important points of 
competition^, the latter, even with the aid of the few lights 
of antiquity which have not been extinguished, readily yield 
to the former, we may well conclude how that question would 
be decided if w r e could regain all which has been irrecovera- 
bly lost. 

The destruction of ancient literature thus begun by the 
Christians, was nearly completed by the barbarians. When 
the luxury and effeminacy of the Eomans had made them 
an easy spoil to the hardy men of the North, the latter looked 
with scorn and disgust upon those things winch they thought 
had enervated their adversaries. The ferocious conquerors 
pitilessly destroyed wdiatever work of genius they could find; 
and with their irruption ended the career of that brilliant 
literature, fragmentary parts of w r hich w T ere fortunately pre- 
served in the works of a Homer and a Thucydides, a Virgil 
and a Livy. 

Among those Christians who yet cultivated polite learn- 
ing, and whose enlightened minds were free from that 
bigotry which sought to destroy every monument of pagan* 



Vz THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS. 

ism, intellectual as well as religious, two of the most eminent 
were Cassiodorus and Boethius. They flourished in the 
reign of Theodoric, the King of the Ostrogoths (a. d. 493), 
w r ho, in humanity and liberality, was a happy exception 
among the barbarian princes. Both Cassiodorus and 
Boethius were statesmen of great eminence. The former, 
during his continuance in office, was a munificent patron of 
learning. He voluntarily retired from public life to a mon- 
astery, and devoted his time to the study of literature and 
the collection of books. He wrote a history of the Goths, 
which, together with his orations, is now lost, and' his re- 
ligious tracts are all that have been preserved of his writings. 

Boethius has been called the Last of the Eomans. He 
was of an ancient family, was educated at Eome, and after- 
ward studied at Athens under the renowned Proclus. Ee- 
turning to Eome after the completion of his studies, he in a 
short time rose, by his extraordinary political abilities, to 
become the prime minister of Theodoric. In the midst of 
the business of State, he found leisure for the study of the 
Greek Philosophers, and translated the works of some of 
them into Latin. Eminently wise and virtuous, he, for 
many years, exerted almost unlimited influence upon the 
mind, of the king. But as the latter grew old, the jealousies 
of the other officers of State poisoned his mind against his 
minister. Boethius was charged with treasonable designs, 
condemned unjustly, and, after a long imprisonment, exe- 
cuted. While in prison he wrote his great work, The Conso- 
lation of Philosophy, in which, for the last time, the elegant 
language of the best Eoman classics was heard. This work, 
though now seldom mentioned, and never read, was a uni- 
versal favorite among the scholars of the middle ages, by 
many of whom it was imitated and translated. 

With Boethius died the last endeavors of Eoman genius. 
His death was on the eve of that night of a thousand years, 



LATIN BOOKS PRESERVED BY THE MONKS. 13 

extending from the fifth to the fifteenth centuries. The 
darkness of these thousand years was greatest in the several 
nations at different periods. With our ancestors, their mid- 
night was in the middle century, the tenth. 

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding the contempt of 
the barbarians for the people of the South, they should so 
readily have been converted to Christianity. Yet their con- 
version proceeded with unexampled rapidity. Despising 
every other characteristic of the conquered, these rude con- 
querors at once received into their honest hearts the simple 
teachings of the Gospel. The different peoples were on that 
account enabled the sooner to coalesce, and to found new 
governments. In the progress of this work, as was most 
natural, all learning, except what pertained to politics and 
warfare, was neglected. 

In the meantime, a few Greek and Soman authors had 
escaped the fury of the Goth by being preserved in the 
monasteries, where the ecclesiastics, who were then the only 
men of education, had fortunately collected them for the 
amusement of their leisure. And yet they were not without 
prejudices against profane authors ; and other motives, be- 
sides a love of letters, induced the study of them, particularly 
those in Latin; for that language was necessary to be pre- 
served, because it was that in which the Vulgate translation 
of the Scriptures, and the decrees and authorities of the 
church, were written. Beyond this, there w T as, among many 
ecclesiastics of high character, a most hurtful prejudice 
against all secular learning. The story, long current, of 
Jerome's dream, that he had been scourged by the devil for 
reading Cicero, was sufficient to frighten the boldest lover 
of classic lore. The gods and nymphs of classical mythology 
were believed to still exist as malignant demons, conquered, 
but keeping up a sort of guerilla warfare in the wild and 
waste places of the earth; and even the gentle and pious 



14 THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS. 

Virgil was changed by tradition to -a terrible enchanter. 
Gregory the Great, the principal founder of papal supremacy, 
was especially hostile to such studies. He professed a great 
contempt for grammatical rules ; and it has even been as- 
serted — but the authorities which deny it are the most au- 
thentic — that he burned a w r hole library of heathen authors. 
But it is true, that, even in many of the monasteries, there 
w r ere the most stringent prohibitions against the reading of 
all but religious books. Those among the ecclesiastics, how- 
ever, who were devoted to learning for its own sake, were 
sufficiently numerous to preserve many books which had 
escaped the flames of persecution. The monks of the order 
of St. Benedict accomplished by far the greater part of this 
most useful work; because they were the most numerous 
and most widely diffused, and because the injunction at the 
foundation of their institution, prescribing the study and 
collection of books, was silent as to the character of these. 
Notwithstanding, therefore, all the prejudices of the monks 
against classical learning, it is to them alone we owe it that 
every vestige of that learning has not been swept away. 

When governments had been established in Europe, and 
the minds of men, now left free for the pursuit of peaceful 
arts, sought to become enlightened ; when this impulse was 
especially encouraged by the division and dissensions of the 
Latin and Greek Churches, the greatest impediment in its 
way was the extreme paucity and the consequent high prices 
of books. A collection of a few volumes was considered a 
great library. The loan of a book was among the greatest 
favors which one person could ask of another. Learned 
men, who perhaps had half a dozen volumes, some of them 
mutilated copies, set an almost fabulous value upon them. 
They were accustomed to send hundreds of miles to borrow 
a book, and when a loan of one was granted, it was done in 
the most formal manner, attested by numerous witnesses, 



GREEK BOOKS PRESERVED BY THE MONKS. 15 

and heavy penalties were threatened if the book should not 
he returned. He who should go so far, in the abundance of 
his piety and liberality, as to give one to a religious house, 
considered himself as having established by this act an un- 
disputed claim to eternal salvation. Nor was this scarcity 
of books confined to the first centuries of the middle ages. 
Notwithstanding the diligent collection and copying of them 
by the monks, and notwithstanding that many of the popes 
themselves, who were patrons of learning, spared no pains 
in such collections from all parts of Christendom, yet, even 
as late as the fourteenth century, books were scarce, and 
commanded exorbitant prices. The royal library of Paris 
contained only four classics— Cicero, Lucan, Ovid, and 
Boethius. The library of Oxford contained only six hun- 
dred volumes of all sorts. We may form some notion of the 
price of books, when w r e remember that, in the beginning of 
the next century, a single copy of the old French poem, Le 
Roman de la Rose, was sold for near two hundred dollars. 

The introduction of Greek literature into Europe is due 
to the Arabs. The Greek* philosophy had expired with Pro- 
clus; under whom and his predecessors it had been carried 
from Athens to Alexandria, where it was ingrafted upon the 
stock of ancient oriental wisdom. This union was productive 
of many and various tenets in the schools of philosophy and 
Christianity. Proclus entered into all the mystic theology 
of Egypt, and, in melancholy foresight of the success of 
Christianity, he was wont to call himself the last of the 
Hermetic chain ; that is, the last of men consecrated by 
Hermes, in whom, by unbroken tradition from the god, was 
preserved the knowledge of the mysteries. His death oc- 
curred in the latter part of the fifth century, and philosophy 
thus lost its greatest champion. In the reign of Justinian 
(a. d. 527-565), when Christianity was all-powerful, and the 
persecuted became persecutors, the schools of philosophy 



16 THE REVIVAL OF LETTERS. 

were closed by an imperial edict, and its disciples forced to 
choose between baptism and banishment. The leading phi- 
losophers went to the court of Nushirvan, king of Persia, by 
whom they were hospitably received, and under his patronage 
the literature of the Greeks was translated into the Persian 
language. From these seeds there afterward grew a rich 
harvest' throughout the dominions of the Prophet. In the 
reign of El Mansoor, the most considerable of the scientific 
works of the Greeks were translated into Arabic ; for an 
early encouragement to their literature had been given by 
Mohammed, in whose household it was familiar. 

In the beginning of the eighth century the Arabs found a 
footing in Europe ; and, having soon subdued the whole of 
Spain, established at Cordova a throne independent of that 
of Bagdad. In the ravages which this warlike people made 
upon Asia, they found great numbers of Greek books, which 
they read with avidity. Ardently fond of learning, they 
succeeded in obtaining from the emperor at Constantinople 
copies of Greek authors, w 7 hich their learned men translated 
into Arabic. Their fondness, however, extended to only a 
few departments of literature : they cared little for histories 
wiiich recorded any events that had occurred before the 
birth of the Prophet, and yet less for books which treated 
of morals and politics differing from the teachings of the 
Koran. The philosophical and physical sciences alone em- 
ployed their study. While they neglected Homer, Thucy- 
dides, and Sophocles, they became well acquainted with 
Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates ; and not only translated 
these into Arabic, but began to devote themselves to the 
task of composing works on the subjects of which they 
treated. They founded universities and schools in many 
cities on the coasts of the Mediterranean, and thus became 
the instruments for the dissemination of useful knowledge 
among the nations of Southern Europe. And though they 



CHARLEMAGNE FOUNDS UNIVERSITIES. 17 

6tudied little of any but works on the sciences, yet we are 
indebted to them for the preservation of many Greek works 
not purely scientific. Many of the classics which we now 
possess would have been lost but for their preservation by 
the Arabs ; for, besides the discouragement which the study 
of all profane authors received from the Christian priest- 
hood in general, vast numbers of books were destroyed at 
Constantinople, at the taking of that city by the Turks, in 
the fifteenth century (a. d. 1453). 

The Arabs have always had a fondness for occult sciences. 
This fondness, which has always been characteristic of the 
nations of the East, furnishes another reason to those 
before mentioned, for their preference for the scientific over 
the literary productions of the Greeks. The former were 
more in harmony with those systems of astrology, and those 
mysterious practices of medicine, which were borrowed from 
their ancient wise men, and which afterward became so 
common in Europe. 

The schools of the Eoman Empire generally shared the 
fate of the libraries, and were broken up by the barbarians; 
but the learning which was introduced by the Arabs was 
liberally disseminated in his empire by Charlemagne, King 
of the Franks (a. d. 768) and Emperor of the West (a. d. 
800-814). By his authority, Greek books, which he found 
in Arabic translations, were again translated into Latin. He 
founded universities in Paris and many other cities of his 
dominions, and, to aid in their organization and regulation, 
the learned Alcuin was sent for from England. This famous 
scholar had prejudices against secular learning; but it was 
not long before young men, in their theological pursuits, 
were required to read profane authors for the improvement 
of their style. 

To the character of the authors first introduced and trans- 
lated by the Arabs is easily to be attributed the direction, 



18 THE BEVIVAL OF LETTERS. 

otherwise strange, which the minds of educated men pur- 
sued in those benighted ages. The works produced were 
generally upon abstruse sciences; and for these the meta- 
physics of Aristotle furnished the subjects. No one man has 
ever exerted nearly so great an influence upon the minds 
of men. For hundreds of years he was sovereign over the 
intellects of the whole human race; and his dicta were as 
authoritative as if they had been revelations from heaven. 
Mohammed and Aristotle, or the Grand Vizier of Alexander, 
as he was called by the Arabs, were in their eyes the two 
only great teachers of mankind. The Koran and the writings 
of the philosopher were a complete and sufficient encyclo- 
pedia of knowledge. This veneration of the latter passed 
over to Europe undiminished. From the eighth century to 
the sixteenth, from Charlemagne to Cosmo de' Medici, he 
was the standard by which the efforts of the human mind 
were measured, in that wide range of subjects over which 
his mighty genius had discoursed. 

Thus strangely circuitous has been the way by which some 
of the works of the ancients have reached us. Fleeing from 
falling Athens, they found a transient resting-place in Alex- 
andria. Those w T hich escaped the destruction of the famous 
library of that city, and the general persecution of pagan 
philosophy and literature by the barbarians and the Christian 
prelates, after a long exile among the half-civilised nations 
of Asia, were restored to their European homes by that 
people whose descendants now pitch their tents in the 
desert. 



CHAPTER II. 

The English and Irish Monasteries — Theodore — Aldhelm — Alcuin — 
Bede — Alfred — The Danish Invasions and Conquest — Darkne3s of 
the Tenth Century — Greater Enlightenment in France and Ger- 
many. 

Among those monasteries which gave the first impulse to 
the restoration of learning, the English and the Irish were 
the most active and conspicuous. The latter especially were, 
in the sixth century, the most famous in Europe. They 
attracted great numbers of students from the continent, and 
educated many eminent scholars for the schools and 
churches. But it was in England that secular learning 
made the greatest advancement. The Anglo-Saxons had 
been converted to Christianity in the latter part of this cen- 
tury (a. d. 597). In the following, the learning of the Greek 
and Latin languages was introduced by Theodore, an Asiatic 
Greek, a native of Tarsus in Cilicia, the first Primate of 
England. He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by 
Pope Vitalian ; and both himself and Andrian, a native of 
Africa, by whom he was accompanied, and who was commis- 
sioned to the Abbacy of St. Austin's at Canterbury, were 
well instructed in the Greek and Latin languages, and 
brought with them a considerable library of religious and 
profane authors. 

Among the pupils of these distinguished foreigners, were 
Aldhelm, Bishop of Sherborne, and Alcuin. The assistance 
which the latter rendered to the educational schemes of 
Charlemagne has already been mentioned. His writings are 



20 FIRST LITERATURE OF ENGLAND. 

made up of homilies, lives of saints, commentaries on the 
Bible, treatises on grammar, astronomy, logic, and rhetoric, 
in the last three of which studies he had the honor of hav- 
ing the Emperor for a pupil. 

But the greatest scholar of this age was Bede, usually 
styled the Venerable (a. d. 673-735). He was educated at 
the monastery of Werernouth, in Northumberland, which 
had been built shortly after the arrival of Theodore and 
Andrian, by the influence of Benedict Biscop, a monk. He 
was the author of several works on various subjects ; but the 
only one by which he is generally known is the Ecclesiastical 
History of England, written in Latin. It was written at 
the suggestion of Alcuin, and is, as the name imports, a his- 
tory of the church. There are only a few civil transactions 
recorded in it. It abounds in the gloomy thoughts, and the 
superstitious beliefs in the every-day miraculous occurrences, 
common to all ranks of Christians in that age. Bede wrote 
with that circumstantiality peculiar to early historians; re- 
lating with jealous accuracy accounts of the preferments of 
abbots, the canonization of martyrs, the finding of precious 
relics of an apostle, and similar events. It was from his 
particular account of the names, ages, characters, and dresses 
of the wise men who came from the East to worship the 
infant Saviour, that were derived the suggestions for the old 
pictures of the Wise Men's Offering. 

Like Alcuin, and like all other ecclesiastics, Bede was far 
from being unprejudiced against profane authors. The 
pagan fictions were generally considered as improper subjects 
for the study of the pious. With the higher classics, indeed, 
neither he nor Alcuin had any very extensive acquaintance. 
It was chiefly with the writers of the lower empire, such as 
Boethius and Cassiodorus, Orosius and Prudentius, that 
they became familiar; and this rather because these authors 
were Christians, and their works regarded as religious, or at 



THE TRIVIUM AND QUADBIVIUM 21 

least as moral, than because they were able to furnish any 
great number of the graces of composition to those who 
studied them. ~ 

The Consolation of Philosophy was translated by Bede. 
Whoever, after having passed through the studies of the 
schools, desired a greater amount of classical learning than 
these were able to impart, was referred to these later authors 
as possessing all that it was desirable to know. Their repu- 
tation was far greater than that of Cicero, Virgil, and Livy. 
We cannot wonder at this, when we remember that the 
latter were heathen, the study of whose works was discour- 
aged by the pious; and, what is a better reason yet, that 
there is required for the just appreciation of the highest 
talent, a critical taste formed by long observation and study, 
in the absence of which men always prefer those productions 
whose ordinary merits are easily perceived, and whom they 
fancy they can equal or imitate without much difficulty. 
Long before the age of Bede, also, there had begun that 
encyclopedic method of study which is so unfavorable to 
accurate learning. Thus students of rhetoric, instead of 
learning its principles from Cicero and Quintilian, as these 
writers were considered too diffuse, were accustomed to con- 
sult epitomes of the art, founded upon the works of these 
masters, by the most obscure authors. Upon works of this 
character were founded all the instruction which was to be 
had from the schools, and which was imparted in two 
courses of studies, called the Trivium and the Quadrivium ; 
the former of which comprised grammar, logic, and rhetoric, 
and the latter, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. 

Almost contemporary with Charlemagne, and his rival in 
the encouragement of education, was Alfred the Great, 
King of England, who came to the throne in the latter part 
of the ninth century (a. d. 872-901). His mind, when a 
youth, was cultivated with all the care that could be 



22 FIRST LITERATURE OF ENGLAND. 

bestowed upon it in the troubled times in which he lived, 
and in which began those invasions of the Danes that re- 
sulted eventually in the conquest of England. He had 
travelled in France, and to Rome, where he was an eye-wit- 
ness of the benign influences of learning; and when he 
ascended the throne, and was able, after many contests with 
his enemies, to hold it firmly, he devoted his life to the 
improvement of his people with an assiduity which, if it has 
ever been equalled, has never been surpassed. Besides many 
salutary changes which he wrought in their laws and cus- 
toms, he gave the most liberal encouragement to learning, so 
that an erroneous tradition has even assigned to him the 
founding of Oxford University. To stimulate the clergy 
to literary pursuits, he made the knowledge of letters an 
indispensable prerequisite in all those who sought promotion 
to offices in the church. The nobles, too, who were ex- 
tremely ignorant, he urged by every means to such pursuits. 
All his own leisure was devoted to them. Fond of his own 
language, and desirous that his people should cultivate the 
habit of reading, he translated into Saxon many Latin 
works, as Orosius's History of the Pagans, Bede's Ecclesi- 
astical History, and the most popular of all works, the Con- 
solation of Philosophy. 

But while, in some of the nations of Europe, literature 
continued to struggle successfully with the darkness which 
ensued upon the downfall of the Roman Empire, in England, 
after the death of Alfred, it again declined. The valor which 
had so long resisted the invasions of the Danes, at length 
yielded to the perseverance of the invaders ; and the period, 
from this time until the Conquest of William the Norman, 
is the darkest in English history. Besides the frequent 
destruction of libraries in the bloody wars which were fought 
before the attainment of Danish supremacy, the prelates of 
the Christian church, lacking the example of an enlightened 



DECLINE OF LEARNING IN ENGLAND. 23 

monarch like Alfred, relapsed into their former prejudices 
against profane authors, and encouraged the study of none 
but those which treated of religious subjects. There might 
be an occasional exception, but it was not of sufficient 
importance to exert any beneficial influence. The cautious 
jealousies of Alcuin and Bede were far from being so detri- 
mental to the study of classical learning as was the ignorant 
and uncompromising hostility of the bishops and abbots of 
the tenth and eleventh centuries. 

At this time, France, and especially Germany, were far in 
advance of England. The numerous schools and universi- 
ties which Charlemagne had established, had diffused through- 
out these two countries the seeds of a continually growing 
civilisation ; and the liberal patronage of that monarch was 
imitated by his successors, Louis le Debonair, Lothaire, and 
Charles the Bald. Their enlightened policy raised up great 
numbers of wise and learned ecclesiastics ; while in England, 
so low had the state of learning fallen, that when a priest 
was desirous of receiving instruction in those studies which, 
a century before, were common in all the monasteries, he 
was forced to send to France for a competent teacher. Thus, 
while the star of civilisation was on the ascendant in France 
and Germany, it was on the decline in England. The des- 
potism of foreign tyrants repressed the rise of learning so 
auspiciously begun by Theodore, and so vigorously promoted 
by Alfred. 



CHAPTER in. 

The Conquest — Its Influence upon Classical Learning in England — 
Lanfrane and Anselm — The Laity begin to Cultivate Literature — 
Joannes Graniniaticus, and other Scholars — Greek beginning to be 
Taught — The Scholastic Philosophy — Its Injurious Influences upon 
Learning — The Mendicant Orders — Study of the Civil Law. 

The Conquest of England by the Normans (a. d. 1066), 
resulted in a state of much higher cultivation than had been 
reached in that country before. The Conquest itself was 
not so great an achievement, in a military point of view, as 
may at first be supposed. The tyranny of the Danish dynasty. 
the complete destruction of personal liberty, the ignorance 
and hopelessness which had been induced by an almost total 
neglect of .mental cultivation, had already prepared the coun- 
try to become an easy spoil to the warlike William. Nor 
was the infusion of Norman ideas and customs sudden or 
violent. The superior fortune of these people had for many 
years excited the attention and the envy of the wealthiest 
and most refined Englishmen ; and, years before the Con- 
quest, English youth were sent over to France to receive that 
higher instruction which it was impossible to obtain at home. 
Edward the Confessor had been educated in France, and, 
after his accession to the throne, the favorites whom he 
brought with him from that country were raised to the high- 
est offices, and the changes in fashions and language had by 
these means already begun. There is indeed no doubt that 
the body of the people resisted this infusion with all their 
might ; and looked upon the new dynasty as probably des- 
tined to impose upon them a worse despotism than that of 



ANTAGONISM OF N0BMAN8 AND ENGL1SII. 25 

the Danes ; and, except in the matter of civilisation, their 
fears were confirmed by the contemptuous and cruel manner 
in which they were treated by their new masters. This 
contemptuousness and cruelty on the one hand, and suffer- 
ing and hatred on the other, presented no little hindrance 
to the progress of the refinement which the Normans intro- 
duced. The characters of the followers of the Conqueror 
were such as to prevent a speedy and cordial union with the 
English. They were, for the most part, great lords and 
ecclesiastics, and while the favoritism of the king rendered 
it unnecessary for them to conciliate the natives, the latter 
could but hate and avoid everything which reminded them 
of their oppressors. The intermixture of French words in 
the English language was, therefore, not wholly owing to 
the Conquest. As an additional proof of this fact, it may 
be remarked that this intermixture had, long before this, 
found its way into the dialects of Scotland. 

But, however objectionable may be the persons of men of 
superior rank and education to those among whom they are 
thrown, they must exert a refining influence upon their 
minds and manners. Among the followers of William, there 
were many whose minds had been highly enlightened by the 
influences of the advancing civilisation of France. With 
the few Englishmen who were admitted to the society of the 
monarch, there was every temptation to imitate the manners 
of the favorites, and to cultivate the language of the court; 
and when the laws of the realm were published in this lan- 
guage, this temptation became a necessity, which, however 
late, must eventually go far to overcome the most settled pre- 
judices. Thus, while the nobility and the clergy all spoke 
French, the common people, notwithstanding their adher- 
ence to their native tongue, gradually received into it that 
admixture of French words, which, in the circumstances of 
their condition, was unavoidable. 

2 



26 THE NORMAN CONQUEST 

It must be borne in mind that the Normans or Norsemen 
were originally a Teutonic people from the north of Europe, 
who at first differed not greatly from the original English 
stock in manners or in language. But after their settlement 
in the south, they adopted the French tongue (a speech of 
Latin origin) and French manners. By ingrafting Celtic 
grace and vivacity upon Norse valor, they produced the sys- 
tem of chivalry, so foreign both in practice and sentiment 
from Saxon ideas. The English ideal of a combat was a 
massacre; the Norman, a tourney. The Englishman was 
impetuous, passionate, awkward in speech; the Norman cool, 
adroit, distinct, polished. Thus the accession of French 
modes of thought and speech gave to the English tongue, as 
French chivalry to Saxon manners, the element each most 
needed. 

The two most eminent churchmen of William were Lan- 
franc and Anselm, who were successively raised to the See 
of Canterbury. The former was a native of Pavia, had been 
educated at the University of Bologna, and was for a time 
Prior of the Abbey of Bee, in Normandy, where the reputa- 
tion of his learning and ability had attracted great numbers 
of students from every part of Europe. He was a fearless 
prelate, and wrote with freedom upon all subjects, whether 
theological, philosophical, or political. Anselm, nearly as 
eminent, started those speculations on the existence of the 
Deity, which were afterward developed into a system by Des 
Cartes. Lan franc and Anselm were the means of reviving 
classical learning among the ecclesiastics, by again making 
an acquaintance with it a prerequisite for promotion in the 
church. 

Before the Conquest, only religious persons were accus- 
tomed to receive a polished education. But in Europe this 
exclusive privilege of the clergy had ceased, and the laity, in 
considerable numbers, attended t)-e lectures of the universi- 



MONASTERIES AND UNIVERSITIES. 27 

ties. This, also, among other liberal changes, was introduced 
by William into England, and henceforth the monasteries, 
which had hitherto been the chief, and almost the only 
depositories of learning, began to lose their importance in 
the eyes of mankind ; though for many years they yet con- 
tinued to afford the amplest facilities for instruction. Wil- 
liam founded many more besides what he already found upon 
his accession, and supplied them with magnificent endow- 
ments. But as the laity, hitherto excluded from them, 
began to flock to the universities, and these rose in import- 
ance, the monasteries declined. 

Whatever objections may be urged against the latter insti- 
tutions, we should not forget that but for them we should 
now have but very few, if any, of the works of the ancients. 
They were once the only places in which was preserved the 
recollection of what the human mind had accomplished in 
past ages. If there was but a feeble light in them, there 
was absolute darkness elsewhere. In an especial manner do 
they deserve our thanks for the careful industry with which, 
during the great scarcity of books, they multiplied copies of 
the few which they possessed. For this object, each had 
commonly a separate room, called the scriptorium, in which 
copyists were kept constantly employed. 

This free access to the fountains of learning soon became 
productive of many distinguished scholars, as Joannes 
Grammaticus, Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose Chronicle, 
containing as well the annals as the fabulous popular tradi- 
tions of the country, furnished themes for the earliest 
French and English romances; John of Salisbury, the 
author of a miscellany called the Pohjcraticon ; William of 
Malmesbury, the historian; Joseph Iscanus, or Joseph of 
Exeter, the author of two epic poems in Latin heroics — one 
on the Trojan war, and the other on the Crusades : and 
Walter Mapes, whose spirited lyrics gained him the title of 



2$ THE NO nil AX COXQUEST. 

the Anacreon of England. In that period, when the lan- 
guages of the different nations of modern Europe were in 
process of formation, a period which, in England, from a 
variety of causes, lasted much longer than upon the conti- 
nent, scholars wrote altogether in Latin; and it is remarka- 
ble with what facility, and with what occasional elegance, 
men. in so rude ages, handled this refined language. Xot 
only prose works, but poetic compositions of rare excellence; 
satires, lyrics, epigrams, some of which might be compared 
with many of those of the best classics, were common in the 
age after the Conquest. They were much superior to those 
of later times, when Leonine verses were in vogue. These, 
though they originated in the fourth century, are supposed 
to have been so named from Leo, a monk of the twelfth 
century, who. being the most distinguished Erench poet of 
his day, wrote great numbers of poems, mostly of this 
description. They were the rhymed Latin pentameters and 
hexameters* which afterwards became so common, that 
when the effort was made to restore the true ancient Latin 
poetry, the latter was styled, in distinction from the Leonine 
verses, the Xew Poetry. 

Hitherto the Greek language had been but little known 
in England. Scholars were well versed in the works of 
Aristotle. Galen, and other Greek philosophical writings. 
But they became so through translations, and even these 
made at second-hand from the Arabic. Greek literature 
owes more, for its transmission to modern times, to the 
Italians than to any other people. During the time of the 
Crusades, and even before, while frequent communications 
were being carried on between Italy and the East, many 
Greek manuscripts found their way from Constantinople. 
It was not until the thirteenth century that their literature 

* The rhyme was at the caesura and the final foot. e. g., 
Post ccenam stabis, seu passus niille nieabis. 



GREEK, AND THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPIIY. 29 

was much studied in England. It made a beginning under 
Kobert Grostete, Bishop of Lincoln, who read lectures at the 
University of Oxford. Under his auspices a considerable 
knowledge of Hebrew also was disseminated. Among those 
Jews, who, by the liberality of the Conqueror, were allowed 
to settle in England, there were many learned rabbis, who 
gave instruction in their language and literature in the 
universities. At their expulsion, two hundred years after- 
wards, their books were sold, and were largely bought and 
studied by the monks. 

But though the Normans greatly aided in promoting the 
study of classical literature, yet with them was introduced 
that which subsequently hindered its progress for centuries. 
This was the Scholastic philosophy. Heretofore, theological 
subjects had been treated by studying the Scriptures, and 
interpreting them according to the individual judgment of 
the student, aided by the traditions and decisions of the church, 
and by studying the Christian writers of the first six hun- 
dred years, called the Fathers, and adopting their commen- 
taries as authority. All the doctrines of the Gospel, whether 
reconcilable or apparently irreconcilable with reason, were 
received with that implicit faith with which a true believer 
assents to all the teachings of God. But such had now 
become the popularity of the works of Aristotle, and the 
subtle reasonings which they contained, that leading church- 
men set about the task of effecting a complete and cordial 
union betwixt faith and reason ; of establishing the truths 
of Christianity according to the orthodox system, by rigid 
rules of argument according to Aristotle and other meta- 
physicians. This new theology was called Scholastic, because 
it originated in the schools established in France by Charle- 
magne and his successors; differing from scholastic philos- 
ophy chiefly in the greater variety of subjects on which the 
latter was employed. This, soon after its origin, became 



30 THE NORMAN' CONQUEST. 

almost the only study for men of learning for centuries. 
Many great names stand prominent in those unremitting 
wars of words which were so fruitless of good to mankind ; 
such as Scotus, Aquinas, Abelard. Great as they were once, 
they are now seldom mentioned, with the exception of the 
last, who is remembered with interest chiefly for his unhappy 
passion for the beautiful, devoted, and unfortunate Eloisa. 

The Scholastic philosophy entered England along with the 
monks of the Conqueror. Both Lanfranc and Anselm were 
devoted to it, and were eminent for the subtle disquisitions 
which they composed. The passion for dialectics had the 
effect to hinder the pursuit of classical studies, and these 
after a time declined. This decline was accelerated by the 
new institution of the Mendicant orders of monks, the 
Franciscan and Dominican friars (a. d. 1209, 1215). Unlike 
the Benedictines, they were not generally men of learning, 
and they eagerly adopted the new philosophy as a means of 
acquiring renown more rapidly than by the arduous study of 
the literature of the dead languages. Such was the disregard 
of these orders for the classics, that there was danger of their 
being lost to the world. Fortunate it was for them, that, 
about the time of the Conquest, there were instituted three 
other religious orders under the Benedictine rule — the Car- 
thusians, the Cistercians, and the Monks of Clugny — who 
cultivated that classical taste which was declining elsewhere. 
They collected and transcribed great numbers of books, and 
nearly all the Latin authors we have we owe to their careful 
collection and preservation by these orders. 

Another impediment to the progress of classical literature, 
was the rising importance of the study of the Civil Law 
of the Roman Empire, which had been generally adopted by 
European nations. The increase of wealth, and the conse- 
quent increase of litigations, had gradually elevated the science 
of the law, and it began to draw to itself men of education 



THE ROMAN CIVIL LAW. 31 

and ability, who found in it a sure road to eminence 
and power. The general civilisation of Europe was doubt- 
less advanced by the study and practice of this profession ; 
but the great importance which was assigned to it, and the 
number of scholars who prosecuted it, not only prevented 
classical learning from advancing, but caused it to retrograde, 
insomuch that Latin and Greek scholars, in the thirteenth 
century, were not to be compared, either in point of num- 
bers or of erudition, with those of two centuries earlier; and 
though there were eminent authors, as Duns Scotus, Alber- 
tus Magnus, in Europe, and Eoger Bacon in England, the 
old models of composition ceased to be followed. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Saxon Chronicle — Conversion of Anglo-Saxon into English — 
Influence of Translations upon this Conversion — Romances of 
Arthur, Charlemagne, and the Crusades — Early English Authors, 
Layamon, Barbour, Mandeville, Langland, and Wycliffe. 

It may not be amiss just here to say a few words about 
the origin of the English language, inasmuch as there are 
many widely-spread popular errors on the subject. We con- 
stantly hear of the English tongue being "derived from the 
Saxon," of "the Saxon element" in it; while others speak 
of a Norse, a German, or a Gothic origin. The student 
should learn, once for all, and never forget, that the English 
is derived from none of these, nor, in the strict sense, from 
any known tongue. It is a distinct branch of the Teutonic 
family of languages, and has been, from the very origin of 
English history, known and spoken as the English tongue. 

The Teutonic people who invaded Britain in the fifth 
century, and finally exterminated the Britons (except a mere 
remnant), are not properly called Saxons, though frequently 
called so then and later, and though there were Saxons 
among them. They were a branch of the Northern Teutonic 
or Low-Dutch family, from the regions now called Sleswick 
and Holstein. They called themselves Angles, and their 
land was Angel-land. They spoke their own Anglish or 
English tongue. When they had possessed themselves of 
the fertile island of Britain, by an almost universal migra- 
tion (in which were included Jutes, Frisians, and others), 
they gave the name of Angel-land or England (Englaland) 



THE ENGLISH TONGUE 33 

to their new abode. Foreign chroniclers, it is true, looked 
upon them as a branch of the OfrZ-Saxon stock, and called 
them Anglo-Saxons, whence the subsequent confusion; but 
they were, from our earliest cognisance of them, a distinct 
people, calling themselves Angles or English. Their de- 
scendants we are, and their tongue w T e still speak. 

In the process of time this tongue has undergone many 
changes ; it has lost its inflections and admitted many foreign 
words, as have also all modern languages to a greater or less 
degree. But it is the language of Alfred and Caedmon as 
w r ell as of Chaucer and Gower; and Alfred and Caedmon, as 
well as Chaucer and Gower, wrote, as they say, "in English." 
Eor the sake of convenience we shall occasionally employ the 
words Saxon or Anglo-Saxon^ to designate the state of the 
language before the introduction of a considerable French ele- 
ment; but we trust the student will remember that the En- 
glish tongue has never been anything but the English tongue. 

Compared with the Italian, and French, the English lan- 
guage w r as tardy in development. The difference in blood, 
in rank, and in cultivation, was greatly unfavorable to the 
union of the French of the Normans with the language of the 
English. While the former continued to speak their own 
language, the latter adhered obstinately to theirs. French 
words, as has been mentioned already, had been finding 
their way into the Anglo-Saxon for a century before the 
Conquest. This process continued imperceptibly and una- 
voidably afterwards. And yet it w T as more than another 
century before the latter language had thrown off its inflec- 
tions, ind taken upon it the prepositions and auxiliaries 
which distinguish from it the English. The Saxon Chroni- 
cle, a collection of records relating detached historical events, 
especially the cruelties which the Saxons suffered from their 
oppressors, closed about the accession of Henry II. in the 
middle of the twelfth century, as it was beginning to employ 

2* 



34 EARLY ENGLISH AUTHORS. 

French words. After the suspension of this Chronicle, the 
language more rapidly threw off its inflections, and com- 
menced to assume its present form. 

So long as the Latin continued to be the vehicle for the 
published thoughts of the learned, the struggle between the 
two spoken languages of the people was not so active and so 
urgent of a decisive settlement; and this was as long as the 
body of the people remained in gross ignorance. While the 
latter yet adhered to the Saxon, with its gradual accessions 
of French derivatives, the nobles and the clergy spoke in 
French only. But all writings, even including epistolary 
correspondence, were conducted in Latin. Whatever may 
be the true account as to the period of the invention of 
paper, whether in the eleventh or in the fourteenth century; 
and whatever may have been its immediate influence upon 
the relations of mankind, in increasing the necessity and the 
amount of that correspondence among the common people, 
yet when, toward the latter part of the fourteenth century, 
its use had become general, Latin was dropped almost 
entirely, and French substituted in its place. The continu- 
ally decreasing study of classical literature no doubt hastened 
the completion of that transition state of our language. 
Henceforth French was taught in the schools, and the youth 
were required to write in it, and to translate the Latin into 
it. It is probable that neither Edward III., the Black 
Prince, nor Richard II., spoke a word of English. Still the 
English persisted in speaking their own mother-tongue. 
And this persistence finally prevailed; for now, even the 
upper ranks, from necessity, began to study English and to 
have their children taught it ; and while the laws and the 
records continued, for many years longer, to be published in 
French, it was enacted, in the year 1362, that all pleas in 
courts of justice should be made and judged in English, on 
account of French being so much unknown. 



THE METRICAL ROMANCES. 35 

Chief among the causes which operated to produce the 
modification of the English language, was the introduction 
of translations from the French metrical romances. Of 
these the earliest were those that recited the legendary 
exploits of Charlemagne and his peers, and of Arthur and 
his Knights of the Bound Table. The latter mythical hero 
especially, with his friend, the enchanter Merlin, and his 
great knight, Sir Lancelot, formed the themes of a multitude 
of highly popular compositions in both languages, Arthur, 
as king both of Britain and of Brittany on the mainland, 
being considered the common hero of both nations, and all 
traditions respecting him common property. Thus, in the 
free interchange of thoughts and images between the French 
and English poets, French words rapidly insinuated them- 
selves into the translations of their lavs into the English 
language. This was the more rapid and easy when nearly 
all Englishmen, who could read at all, could read French ; 
and English minstrels preferred composing in that language, 
or when they did not this, they interpolated into their com- 
positions French phraseologies in the most unrestrained' 
abundance. 

The Crusades introduced a decided change in the charac- 
ter of the Romances, as these compositions were called, from 
the name given to the languages of Southern Europe, which 
sprung from the Latin or Eoman tongue. Romantic, in its 
original and justest sense, includes all modern literature, in 
distinction from the literature of the ancients, or the Clas- 
sical. When the innumerable Fabliaux and traditional nar- 
ratives constituted the only native literature of France and 
England, they took their name from the language in which 
they were written, and the name afterwards came to denote 
any composition founded upon fictitious adventures. The 
change which the Crusades introduced into these romances 
was the substitution of imaginary for traditionary heroes and 



3 6 EARL T ENGLISH A UTHORS. 

adventurers; and the tales of chivalry thenceforward con- 
stituted the literature of the times. The translations of 
these into English, the gradual extension of knowledge 
among the common people, and the approximation of Nor- 
man and Saxon rank, at last ended in the establishment of 
that compromise between the two languages, which, with 
the improvements it has since received, and. the further 
accessions from the French, the Latin, and the Greek, is the 
language which we speak to-day — a language which owes, in 
great part, the strength, copiousness, and flexibility which 
render it so admirable an instrument for the expression of 
every shade of thought and feeling, to the infusion of these 
various elements. 

Many authors, eminent in their days, wrote in the ever- 
varying dialect of our ancestors, such as Layamoi* and 
Robert of Gloucester. The following lines, from the 
commencement of the story of Leir and his daughters 
(whence Shakespeare drew his tragedy of "King Lear"), will 
serve as a specimen of Robert of Gloucester's language : 

a Thre dogtren 1 this kyng haclde, the eldest Gornorille, 
The Hiydmost a hatte 3 Regan, the yongost Cordeille. 
The fader hem 4 louede alle ynogh, 5 ac 6 the yongost mest, 7 
For heo 8 was best and fairest, and to hautenesse drow 10 lest. 11 " 

About the middle of the fourteenth century appeared the 
poems of Laurekce Mikot, which have for their subjects 
the wars of Edward III., the victor of Crecy and Poictiers. 
Contemporary with these poems was the first epic in the 
language, the Bruce of John Barbour, a Scotsman. The 
first prose w r ork (a. d. 1356), is The Voiage and Travailes of 
Sir John Maundeville, Knight, which Treateth of the Way 
of Hierusaleme, and the Marveyles of Inde, with other Hands 
and Countryes. The title suggests that, in those times, 

1 Daughters. 2 Middle (one). 3 Named. 4 Them. 5 Enough. • But 
Most. 8 She. * Haughtiness. 10 Drew (was disposed). J1 Least. 



SIR JOHN MATJKDEYILLE. 37 

when the world was little known, a traveller might safely, as 
he was often tempted to do, popularise the account which 
he was to give of what he had seen, by exaggerating the 
wonders of those countries through which he had passed. 
The old books are numerous in which the wonders of the 
world are recounted. As a specimen of the language of 
Maundeville, we subjoin a part of his description of the 
phoenix : 

11 He is not mecheles 1 more 3 than an egle, and he hathe a crest of 
feclres upon his heel more gret than the poocok hathe; and his nekke 
is yalowe, after colour of an orielle, that is a ston well schynynge ; 8 
and his bek is coloured bleu as ynde ; 4 and his wenges ben 5 of purpre 
colour and the taylle is yelow and red. And he is a mile fair brid to 
loken 6 upon, agenst the sonne, for he schynethe T fully gloriously and 
nobely." 

There has always been a marked and characteristic differ- 
ence between Northern and Southern European races, in their 
general conception of religious matters. The races of the 
South are more powerfully impressed through the senses, and 
are more swayed by their emotions; hence a splendid ritual, 
hierarchic pomp, the raptures of the mystics, and the self-tor- 
tures of the ascetic, have always, in their eyes, been essential 
parts of religion. The Northern peoples, on the other hand, 
are more affected by their reason: and with them religion 
tends ever to be regarded as a system of beneficent morality, in 
which the master-word is Duty. Hence the laity have at 
all times been inclined to criticise the morals of the clergy, 
and at times when their morals seemed particularly lax, to 
protest vigorously against them. 

At the commencement of the fourteenth century, ecclesi- 
astical rule had grown especially oppressive in England, and 
ecclesiastical morals especially loose. Multitudes of bene- 
fices were held by foreign prelates, who drew vast revenues 

* Much. 2 Larger. 3 Shining. 4 Indigo. * Are. • Look. 7 Shineth. 



38 EARLY ENGLISH AUTHORS. 

from the country. The bishops, abbots, and even the infe- 
rior clergy, indulged in unclerical pomp and luxury, and 
demeaned themselves with a haughtiness which the inde- 
pendent English spirit could ill brook ; and two bold voices 
were raised against them, that of the author of Piers Plough- 
man, and that of Wycliffe. 

The Vision concerning Piers Ploughman is usually attribu- 
ted to William Langland, who lived about 1360. It is in 
the old English tongue, before the French element was so 
largely introduced, and is alliterative instead of rhyming. 
It is in an allegorical form ; sins, virtues, and other personi- 
fications forming the chief dramatis personse, but interspersed 
with vivid pictures from life. It paints the sufferings and 
needs of the poor, the vices and oppression of the clergy — 
in a word, the dark side of the picture whose bright side is 
shown in Chaucer. Langland is as earnest as Chaucer is 
playful; and though the extreme antiquity of the style 
renders him difficult reading, the work is richly worth study. 
We subjoin his description of the poor ploughman : 

I sei a sely 1 man nie by opon the plow hongen 3 

His cote was of a eloute 3 that cary 4 was y-called, 

His hod 5 was full of holes and his beer 6 oute, 

With his knopped schon 7 clouted 8 full thykke 9 ; 

His ton toteden out 10 as he the londe treddede 11 ; 

His hosen overhongen his hokschynes 13 on everiche 13 a side 

Al beslombred 14 in fen 15 as he the plow folwede ; 

Twey mytenes 16 as mete, maad all of cloutes ; 

The fyngers weren for-werd 17 and ml of fen honged. 

This whit 18 waseled 19 in the fen almost to the ancle, 

Foure rotheren'- hym by-forn that feble were worth en 21 ; 

Men myte reken ich a ryb 22 , so reuful 23 they weren. 

His wyf- 4 walked 113ml with, with a longe gode 25 , 

1 Simple, poor. 2 Hang. 3 Rag. 4 A coarse stuff. 6 Hood, 6 Hair. 
T Knobbed shoes. 8 Patched. 9 Thick. 10 Toes stuck out. "Trod. 
12 Heels. 13 Every. 14 Befouled. 15 Mire. ia Two mittens. 17 Worn 
away. 18 Man. 19 Floundered. 20 Heifers. 21 Worked weak. 22 Beckon 
each rib. 23 Pitiful. 24 Wife. 25 Goad. 



WYCLIFFE. 39 

In a cutted cote, cutted full beye, 

Wrapped in a wynwe shete 26 to weren hire fro weders", 

Barefote on the bare ys 28 , that the blode folwede. 

And at the londes ende laye a crom bolle 29 , 

And theron ley a litell childe lapped in cloutes, 

And tweyne 30 of tweie yeres olde upon another syde, 

And they alle songen o 31 songe that sorwe was to heren 32 ; 

They crieden alle o cry, a carefull note. 

While Langland attacked the clergy from the secular side, 
their wealth, luxury, and oppression, a far heavier attack was 
opened upon them by Joh^t Wycliffe (1324-1384) from the 
spiritual side. "Wycliffe, who was a professor of divinity in 
the University of Oxford, protested against the claim of the 
priesthood to be the sole depositaries and exponents of the 
Scriptures; and asserted the right of every Christian to read 
them in his own tongue. " Cristen men and wymmen," he 
says in his prologue. " olde and yonge, schulden* studie fast 
in the ISTewe Testament. For it is of full autorite, and opeyn 
to the undirstonding of simple men, as to the poyntis that 
ben moost neclful to Salvacion." To this end he made a 
translation of the Bible into the simple English of the com- 
mon people, which was eagerly read and studied. Its effect 
was profound : and though the book was afterward pro- 
scribed, and terrible penalties imposed upon all known to 
possess a copy, or to hold the doctrines of TTyeliffe, yet both 
the book and his teachings were secretly treasured, and paved 
the way for the Eeformation in England. 

Wycliffe was violently persecuted by the church, and only 
escaped death by the protection of John of Gaunt, the son 
of Edward III. and uncle of Richard II. By a decree of 
the Council of Constance (1428) Wycliffe's bones were dis- 
interred and burnt, and the ashes cast into the river Swift. 

26 Winnowing sheet. 2T To protect her from the weather. 29 Ice. 
29 Crumb-bowl [kneading-trough?] ,0 Two. S1 One. sa Was s prrowiul 
to hear. 



40 EARLY ENGLISH AUTHORS. 

We give two brief specimens of Wycliffe'fi translation , 

the first from Isaiah liii., and the second from Luke xv. 

"Yereli oure sicnesses he tooc, and our sorewes he bar: and we 
heelden hyrn as leprous, and smyten of God. and niekid. He forsothe 
woundid is for oure wicMdnesses, defoulid is for oure hidous giites : 
the discyplyne of oure pes up on kyin, and with his wannesse we ben 
lieled. AJle wee as shep erredin, eeiie in to his weie I "-wede doun, and 
the Lord putte in hyin the wiekidness of us alio. He is otfred, for he 
wolde, and he opened not his mouth: as a shep to sleyng he shal 
be led, and as a lamb bifor the eiippere itself, he shal become doumb, 
and he opened not his mouth.'' 

u And the fadir seide to his servauntis. Swithe biynge ye forth the 
first stoole, and clothe ye hym, and gyve ye a ryng in his he-ii-l. and 
sckoou on Ms feet : and biynge ye a fat calf, and sle ye. and ere we, 
and make we feeste. For this my sone was deed, and hath lyred agen ; 
he perischid, and is foundun." 

Having thus passed cursorily through the history of 
English literature down to the time when the language as- 
sumed a definite character, for the want of which it was 
comparatively late in producing works clestin je of solid 

and permanent reputation, we have now arrived to the time 
of the first great poet of England: one who. as he was im- 
measurably superior to all who preceded,, has been surpassed 
by only a few who have followed him. and to whom, more 
than to any other one person, the language is indebted for 
its development. This was Chaucer. But before introduc- 
ing him, let us refer to those authors in another country. 
after whose works his own were, to some degree, modelled, 
and whose glory it was to have begun the first successful 
movement in the revival of ancient letters, and as such 
belong less to their own country than to the world. 



CHAPTER V. 

Petrarch ; his Preference for the most Ancient Classics ; his Collec- 
tion of Greek Manuscripts ; his Africa and Sonnets — Boccaccio ; his 
Theseid ; the Decameron ; his Devotion to Greek Literature. 

Petbarch and Boccaccio have the honor of being the ori- 
ginators of that preference for the most ancient classics which 
resulted in the effectual restoration of their works. During 
the middle ages, as has been already seen, only those Greek 
authors who wrote upon the philosophical sciences w r ere 
studied by the learned ; while of the Latin, those of the lower 
empire were far more generally known and valued than those 
which are now justly celebrated as the best models of Roman 
literature. While Boethius and Cassiodorus, Fortunatus 
and Prudentius were eagerly studied, Cicero and Sallust, 
Virgil and Horace were neglected. In the revival which 
these eminent Italians began, their elegant taste at once 
selected the great names in Grecian and Roman literature, 
and assigned to them those highest places which, by the 
unanimous consent of the learned of all countries, they have 
since, without molestation, retained. 

Petrarch was a native of Florence, but had lived since his 
infancy at Avignon, then (in the beginning of the fourteenth 
century) the residence of the popes. Though destined for the 
law, and to this end entered as a student at the University of 
Bologna, his tastes, already directed in boyhood by reading 
the works of Cicero, diverted him from this profession when 
he had grown up, and he entered the pursuit of letters. With 



42 PETRABCH AND BOCCACCIO. 

indefatigable industry, he pursued his researches among 
libraries for ancient manuscripts which lay in the dust and 
mould of ages, many of which, then almost illegible, were 
saved by his timely endeavors. To the study of, and to the 
work of restoring these manuscripts, he devoted many years 
of arduous toil; and through his influence, as a diplomat 
and man of letters, he was enabled to secure the co-opera- 
tion of some of the most powerful princes of Italy. 

But to the fame of a restorer of ancient learning he 
wished to add that of a great poet. Forming his style upon 
that of the great Eoman authors, he composed in Latin an 
epic poem, celebrating the heroes of the second Punic war. 
This was the Africa, for the production of which he received 
a crown of laurel in the capitol of the Caesars. Upon this 
poem his fame during life principally rested. It was the 
pride of his heart, and was placed, by his own partiality, far 
above his other productions. And yet what has immortal- 
ised him as a poet, and upon which, strange though it seems, 
he set little value himself, is that unrivalled collection of 
sonnets and odes which he produced in his own language. 
He conceived a love for a beautiful young woman of 
Avignon — a hopeless love ; for the lady was already married, 
and, whether much attached to her husband or not, was sen- 
sitive to the duties and proprieties of married life. The 
poet sang his love in these sonnets, whose exquisite beauty 
and tenderness have never been rivalled. No spot is better 
known than the valley of Vaucluse, whose name, as well as 
that of Laura, has been rendered immortal by this great 
poet. 

Contemporary with Petrarch, and only four years his 
junior, was Boccaccio, who divided with him the glory not 
only of rescuing from destruction the perishable monumenjts 
of ancient genius, but of enriching the Italian language. 
The son of a merchant, he had been apprenticed to one of 



THE THESEID AND DECAMERON. 43 

the same vocation, and, like Petrarch, was afterward destined 
for the'profession of the law. Not relishing this, he began 
to devote himself to the poetry of his native language. 
However hopeful may have been his youth, of attaining to 
eminence in this department of literature, he became so 
discouraged when he saw the sonnets of Petrarch, that he 
at once committed his own poetic effusions to the flames. 
One poem alone he preserved, the Theseid, composed upon 
the adventures of Theseus, the renowned hero of Grecian 
mythology. In the composition of this poem, he employed 
a stanza called "ottava rima," of which he is supposed to 
have been the inventor, and in which a great portion of the 
succeeding poetry of his country is written. Despairing &£ 
reaching the highest eminence in poetry, he entered another 
department of literature, then new among the Italians, but 
rendered famous by the Trouveres, as the poets of the north- 
ern part of France were styled, in distinction from the 
Troubadours of the south. This was romantic fiction. His 
inventive mind here found a home. With wonderful rapidity 
he produced his celebrated work, the Decameron, consisting 
of one hundred tales ; a work which has been more read 
and. imitated, and plagiarised upon than that of any other 
one man of the middle ages. The scene of the recounting of 
these tales is the hamlet of Fiesole, near Florence. The 
author represents that during the prevalence of the plague 
in that city in the year 1348, three young men and seven 
young women retreated to this hamlet and spent ten days 
together. To relieve the melancholy occasioned by the 
daily loss of friends, and by their forced absence from the 
gay city, it was agreed that every one should relate a tale 
everyday; thus making them amount, in the ten days, to 
one hundred. They contain every variety of incident and 
character, pathetic and humorous, virtuous and gross. Sug- 
gested, as in truth they were, by the plague, they exhibit that 



44 PETRARCH AND BOCCACCIO. 

unrestrained license of thought and speech which is^one of 
the effects of that demoralisation which accompanies great pes- 
tilences. Not all, and probably not very many, of these tales 
are of Boccaccio's own invention. Many of them were the 
common tales of the Italians. Many were taken from the 
Troubadours ; while others of them, of remote Greek origin, 
had been imported into Italy by the Greek exiles from Con- 
stantinople ; all of which were remodelled by him, and placed 
with those of his own invention. 

Boccaccio continued the pursuit of classical learning which 
had been begun by Petrarch. When lie had reached middle 
life, he inherited a considerable sum of money, which he lib- 
eicilly expended in the continued search and study of Greek 
manuscripts. It was the labors of Petrarch and Boccaccio 
which prepared Italy for the hospitable reception of those 
learned Greeks from Constantinople in whose teachings 
learning fairly revived. Barlaam had been the teacher of 
Petrarch, and Leontius Pilatus of Boccaccio. These paved 
the way for the coming of Chrysoloras, the most distinguished 
and learned of the Greeks. With him the long night of the 
dark ages ended, and the day of civilisation again dawned. 
Italy has thus the honor of restoring the ancient standards 
of literature, not only Latin, but Greek also. It seemed 
fitting that it should be thus ; that there, where they had 
fallen, they should be raised again ; and though many others 
made far more extensive and successful researches after- 
ward for the great works of antiquity, and though Petrarch 
and Boccaccio have acquired a full measure of fame in other 
departments of literature, as the fathers, the one of the poetry, 
and the other of the elegant prose, of the true Tuscan lan- 
guage, yet we ought not to forget, — what is their highest 
title to praise, — that they were the first restorers of ancient 
letters. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

Chaucer ; Characteristics of his Age ; of his Poetry ; his Acquaintance 
with Petrarch and Boccaccio — The Roniaunt of the Rose — Troilus 
and Cressida — The Canterbury Tales — Gower — Decline of Learning 
during the Wars with France and of the Roses — Formation of the 
English Language — The Paston Letters — Invention of the Art of 
Printing ; its Introduction into England by Caxton. 

Geoffkey Chaucer (born A. d. 1328, died 1400) has 
been justly styled the "Morning-Star " of English literature. 
Not only does he stand out brilliantly above all his contem- 
poraries and his successors for two hundred years, by the lus- 
tre and versatility of his genius, but by enriching and improv- 
ing the language so as to render it capable of the most deli- 
cate and vigorous expression, he prepared the way for the 
splendid sunrise of the Elizabethan era. 

Many things combined to give Chaucer this eminent posi- 
tion. He lived in a time which, take it all in all, is perhaps 
the most stirring and brilliant in English history. Edward 
III., the knightliest king that ever sat on the English throne, 
after restoring peace at home, carried his arms into France, 
to vindicate his claim to the throne of that country, and the 
splendid victories of Crecy and Poictiers placed the invaded 
kingdom almost entirely at his mercy. Chivalry, then in 
its prime, tempered the rudeness and harshness of feudalism 
by its gallantry, courtesy, and graceful, if fantastic, pictur- 
esqueness. The liberties of the people, secured by Magna 
Charta, were confirmed by the " Good Parliament," which laid 
the foundation of the modern political system. The arts, 
especially architecture and metal-working, were flourishing, 
and social life was rendered picturesque by the varieties in 



46 CHAUCER. 

dress, speech, and manners, which distinguished the different 
classes and callings of the people. At the same time the re- 
ligious teachings of "Wycliffe, and the vehement hostility they 
aroused, had tended greatly to quicken the interest of the peo- 
ple in both spiritual and intellectual matters. 

Chaucer's own position gave him peculiar opportunities 
for availing himself of the advantages of his time. Of a good, 
though not noble family, he was allied to the highest in the 
land, his wife being the sister-in-law of John of Gaunt, Duke 
of Lancaster, third son of Edward III., and, as he enjoyed the 
friendship of this prince, the most distinguished society in 
the realm and the most splendid court in Europe were open 
to him. He was possessed, as he tells us himself, of a com- 
fortable estate/ enjoyed several honorable offices, and travelled, 
both for his own pleasure and on diplomatic missions, to 
France and Italy, to an extent that was unusual at the time. 

Scarcely any of the qualities of a great poet are wanting 
in Chaucer; but what perhaps constitute his chief charm 
are his exquisite tenderness, his sweet and fresh simplicity 
of style, never since equalled, and his passionate love for the 
beauties of nature. Probably no other poet has left us so 
many pictures of bright scenery in the woods and fields ; and 
it is scarcely a figure of speech to say that his poetry is every- 
where redolent of flowers and the fresh grass, and musical 
with the song of birds. 

We subjoin a specimen from the opening of TJie Floure and the 
Leafe. 

Wherefore I mervaile gretly 1 of myselfe 

That I so long withouten slepe lay, 
And up I rose, thre howris after twelfe, 
About the springing of the gladsome day, 
And on I put my gear and mine aray 2 , 

-His income was £1000 per annum, equivalent to £10,000 at the present 
day. 

1 Marvelled greatly. 8 Eaiment. 



INFLUENCE OF TEE ITALIAN POETS. 4? 

And to a plesaunt grove I gan to pas, 
Long ere the bright sonne uprisin was. 

In which were okis 3 grete, streight as a line, 
Under the which the gras so freshe of hew 

Was newly sprong, and an eight fote or nine 
Eveiy tre well fro his fellow grew, 
With braunchis brode 4 , ladin with levis new 

That sprongen out agen the sonne shene 5 , 

Some very rede 6 , and some a glad light grene ; 

Which, as me thought, was a right plesaunt sight ; 

And eke the bird is songis for to here 
Would have rejoisid any erthly wight, 

And I, that couth 7 not yet, in no manere 

Herin 8 the nightingale of all the yere, 
Full besily herkenid with hert and ere s 
If I her vois perceive could anywhere. 

While travelling in Italy, Chaucer made the acquaintance 
of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and learned to share their love of 
literature and enthusiasm for the works of the ancients. 

Boccaccio had been long unknown as the author of the 
Decameron. It was then only lately known by Petrarch, to 
whom, as his preceptor, he had revealed it. Petrarch was 
delighted with it. He w T as especially charmed by the tale of 
the faithful Griselda ; so much so indeed, that he ccmmitted it 
to memory, and was accustomed to recite it always with 
much emotion. Chaucer was one of those to whom he thus 
recited it, an allusion to which is thus made in the Prologue 
to the Tale of the Gierke of Oxenfourde : 

" I wol you tell a tale which that I 
Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerke 
As preved by his wordes and his werk. 
Francis Petrark, the laureat poete, 
Highte this clerke, whos rhetorik swete 
Enlumined all Itaille of poetrie." 



* Oaks. 4 Broad. 6 Sunshine. • Red. 7 Could. 8 Hear. 9 Heart and 
Ear. 



48 CHAUCER. 

In his sojourns in France and Italy, lie became well ac- 
quainted with the language and literature of those two coun- 
tries. As has been before shown, the first original compositions 
of any value in modern Europe began in the former country, 
in the Fabliaux of the Trouveres, and the Eomances of the 
Troubadours. These had been translated into Italian ; and 
the admiration which they everywhere excited suggested 
to Boccaccio the idea of writing his collection. In these 
romances was revived the ancient fondness for allegorical 
characters, so long the favorites of the poets, and so tiresome 
to readers of the present day. 

Chaucer returned from his travels with his mind well- 
stored with the images of the poets of other countries; and, 
thoroughly versed in the knowledge of mankind, their char- 
acters and habits, he devoted himself, late in life, to literary 
pursuits. Le Eoman de la Rose w T as the favorite among all 
the old poems of the French ; begun by William of Lorris, 
a student of law, in the latter part of the thirteenth, and 
finished by John of Meung in the beginning of the fourteenth 
century. Iir was the best poem which appeared in France 
before the sixteenth century. It is an allegory, containing 
a long account of numberless difficulties and dangers through 
which a lover passed before attaining the object of his desires, 
figured by a rose. Chaucer obtained a considerable reputa- 
tion by a paraphrase of this poem. 

In treating of love, Chaucer has drawn inspiration from 
the elevated, if extravagant, sentiments of the troubadours 
of the south. Honorable love is not merely the crowning 
grace of a perfect knight, but the bestower of all good gifts, 
the nurse of virtue and honor. The knight is not only 
bound to distinguish himself in arms, but to live a nobler 
and purer life for his lady's sake, who, on her part also, 
acknowledges its ennobling influence. 



THE CANTERBURY TALES. 49 

Thus Antigone sings — 

Whom should I thankin but you, god of Love, 
Of all this bliss in which to bathe I ginne ? 

And thankid be ye, Lorde, for that I love ; 
This is the righte life that I am inne, 
To tlemin all manir of vice and siune ; 

This doeth me so to vertue for to entende 

That daie by daie I in my will amende. 

And I with al mine herte and al m3 r might, 

As I have saied, wol love unto my last 
Mine owne dere herte, and al mine owne knight, 

In whiche mine herte ygrowin is so fast 

And his in me, that it shal evir last : 
Al did I dred at first love to begin : 
Now wote I wel there is no pain therein. 

The fame of the poet was still further heightened by his 
poem of Troilus and Creseide, founded upon a story of the 
same name which was attributed to Lollius, a poet of Italy. 
It is, as he quaintly termed it, " a litell tragedie," representing 
the adventures of these two lovers. But the work upon 
which his fame principally rests, and which deservedly gave 
him the name of the father of English poetry, is the Canter- 
bury Tales. Stimulated by the renown which the Decam- 
eron had bestowed upon Boccaccio, he conceived the plan of 
producing a similar work in the poetry of his own language. 
The difficulty of accomplishing such a thing, and the value 
of it when accomplished, will appear the greater, when we 
remember how ill qualified was then the English language 
for the expression of poetic thoughts. A mixture of several 
languages, it had not yet settled upon any definite principles 
of construction. The bold genius of Chaucer met this diffi- 
culty by free adoptions from the French. It was a liberty 
authorised not only by the poverty of the language, but by 
the precedents of the translations of the French Tales. He 
was bitterly condemned by those subsequent scholars who 

3 



50 CEA UCEE, 

looked with a jealous eye upon the. increasing use of the 
language of the ]S"ornian invaders ; but his incomparable 
superiority to them soon secured him that eminence which 
he has ever since maintained. 

The foundation of the Canterbury Tales was similar to 
that of the Decameron. Thomas a Becket, the first man of 
purely English descent who had been allowed to fill any 
high office since the Norman Conquest, was first raised, under 
the patronage of Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury, to 
the post of chancellor, in the reign of Henry II., the first of 
the Plantagenets. He so commended himself to the mon- 
arch by his abilities and address, that, on the death of Theo- 
bald, he was made his successor. Ambitious and daring, he 
readily lent his powerful aid to the Eoman pontiff in acquir- 
ing the ascendency which some of the popes had been 
anxious to establish throughout Christendom. He had 
pushed his usurpations of the royal prerogative so far, that 
some of the civil officers, interpreting some angry expres- 
sions of the king as intimating a desire to that effect, attacked 
the primate as he was hearing vespers in the Church of St. 
Benedict at Canterbury, and slew him. This event happened 
in the year 1170. It excited the resentment of the pious to 
such an extent, that the king was compelled to undergo the 
most humiliating penance. Becket was canonized as a saint, 
miraculous cures were attributed to him while living and 
after his death, and pilgrims were wont to repair to his tomb, 

" The holy blissful martyr for to seek, 
That them hath holpen when that they were sick." 

In his poem, Chaucer represents twenty-nine of these pil- 
grims on their way to the shrine of the Saint, meeting by 
accident at the Tabard Inn at Southwark. Among these 
were a Knight and a Squire, a Prioress and several Priests, a 
Clerk of Oxenfourde, a Lawyer, a Physician, a Miller, and 



THE CANTERBURY TALES. 51 

a representative of almost every other vocation. The host 
proposed that they should journey together the rest of the 
way, and that, by way of enlivening the time, every one 
should relate a tale on the way to Canterbury, and another 
on the return to the Tabard ; where, whoever should be 
adjudged to have told the best, should have a supper fur- 
nished at the expense of the others. The proposition was 
agreed to. Chaucer, as is seen by this account, designed to 
produce fifty-eight of these tales. He did not live, however, 
to complete his design. Of those which he finished, the 
best are those of the Knight, the Squire, and the Clerk 
of Oxenfourde. In but few of them is there any originality 
of design. They are borrowed freely from the French Fabli- 
aux, being sometimes mere translations. The ClerTce\s Tale, 
as before mentioned, is that of the patient Griselda of Boc- 
caccio. But though the plan of these tales is borrowed from 
others, the life and spirit of them spring from the genius of 
the poet. Especially happy is he in the vivid, life-like delin- 
eation of personality, frequently striking out, with a few 
touches, a character as vivid as reality. 

No one who has read the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales 
can forget the Knight 

That fro the time that he first began 

To riden out, he lov&d chivalry, 

Trouthe and honour, freedom and curtesie . . 

And though that he was worthy, he was wise, 

And of his port as meke as is a mayde. 

He never yet no vilanie ne sayde 

In all his lif unto no ruanere wight ; 

He was a veray parfit gentil knight — 



or the 



yonge Squier 
A lover and a lusty bachiler, 
With lockes curled as they were laid in presse 
Siuging he was, or floyting all the day ; 
He was as freshe as is the month of May — 



52 CHAUCER. 

the dainty Prioress, with 

Her nose tretis, her eyen grey as glas, 

Her mouth full smale and thereto soft and red . . . 

She was so charitable and so pitous 

She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous 

Caught in a trappe, if it were dede or bledde — 

the jolly Monk, whose 

hed was balled and shone as any glas 
And eke his face as it hadde been annoint ; 
He was a lord ful fat and in good point : 
And when he rode men might his bridle here 
Gingering in a whistliug wind as clere 
And eke as loud as doth the chapel bell- 

and the humble Parson, who 

This noble ensample to his shepe he yaf 

That first he wrought and afterwards he taught, 

He waited after no pompe, ne reverence, 

Ne maked him no spiced conscience, 

But Cristes love and his Apostles twelve 

He taught, but first he folwed it himselve. 

There are other minor poems of Chaucer, as The House 
of Fame, the Floure and the Leafe, etc. Few men have ever 
had in them so well combined the good sense of the man of 
business and the exquisite imagination of the poet. His 
long connection with public affairs, and his constant obser- 
vation of men of all characters and professions, aided a mind, 
naturally fertile, to produce inventions which have not been 
surpassed in our language except by those of Shakespeare. 
His poems everywhere abound in classical illustrations, 
though he was too much of an observer of the characters 
and manners of his own age to be compelled to borrow the 
thoughts of those of remote ages, and his writings are purely 
of the romantic school. 

We can never too well admire that genius which shone 
so pre-eminently bright in an unenlightened age and an 



JOHN GOWER. 53 

undeveloped language : which conceived so many great 
thoughts, and then, as it were, invented for their expression 
the words which his own vernacular tongue was unable to 
supply. He w T as thus not only the father of English poetry, 
but may justly be regarded as the writer who formed the En- 
glish tongue. In this work of developing the language, how- 
ever, he was greatly aided by his friend, Jonx Gotver, a 
man who is not highly illustrious, only because he was con- 
temporary with Chaucer, whose superior genius absorbed all 
the praise due to the literature of his age. Gower was a 
highly educated man, and industriously devoted to the im- 
provement of his language. As a poet, he is remembered 
chiefly for The Confession of a Lover, in which the mythol- 
ogy of antiquity is not very conveniently blended with 
Christianity. It is a dialogue between a lover and his con- 
fessor; who, though a priest of Venus, is a good Catholic, 
and does not forget the breviary w r hile acknowledging and 
employing the teachings of Ovid's Art of Love. Like most 
of the compositions of the middle ages, it abounds in alle- 
gorical representations, and, besides, contains a number of 
legendary stories, and many long digressions upon science, 
philosophy, and politics. The structure of Gower's verse is 
simpler than Chaucer's, and his language, though really as 
old, resembles more that in present use. 

If great men like Chaucer appear only after long intervals 
in enlightened, it is reasonable that those intervals should 
be longer in unenlightened ages. He rises the higher when 
we compare him with those who came after him for a very 
long period. The wars of England with France were suc- 
ceeded by the civil wars of the houses of York and Lancas- 
ter. These latter especially were disastrous to letters : and 
we look in vain for eminent poets or scholars. It is true, 
that every decade produced a poet, such as Occleve, Lydgate, 
Hawes, and others of their kind ; but the design of this 



54 CHA UCEB. 

work being to notice only the most prominent persons and 
events in the history of our literature,, we must pass over 
names less distinguished, to the times when the language 
became sufficiently developed to be capable of giving conve- 
nient expression to the thoughts of the men of genius whom 
it produced. Not only poetry, but all other branches of 
literature, continued to decline after the death of Chaucer. 
Hosts of inconsiderable writers exercised the little talent they 
had in the only work which they were capable to perform, 
that of translation. In classical learning. England was im- 
mensely far behind Italy, where, as we have seen, there had 
already arisen that critical taste which was able to prefer the 
most ancient classics to those of the lower empire. These 
writers still adhered to the latter ; as indeed they were the 
only ones with which they had any acquaintance, thanks to 
the Scholastic philosophy, which had now complete control 
of the universities, where the thousands of students which 
attended them were taught the worst kind of logic in the 
worst kind of Latin. In the dearth of original thoughts, 
they translated these Latin authors into English. The Con- 
solation of Philosophy was the great favorite. These transla- 
tions had the effect of repressing native genius; but they 
produced the best possible consequences in their constant 
improvement of the language. It, however, continued, for 
many years, to keep those words and phrases, now grown 
obsolete, to understand which a reader of the present day 
must have a glossary by his side. Such words and phrases 
were gradually being dropped until about the accession of 
Edward IV., when they had almost ceased to be used, and 
the English language assumed nearly its present form. 

Among the first productions in modern English, and 
probably the first of their kind in any language, are the 
Paston Letters; a series of letters on the common and 
familiar topics of every-day life. They are so called from 



WILLIAM CAXTON. 55 

the Paston family, by several members of which, male and 
female, they were written. They are in an easy and spright- 
ly style ; and are valuable for the information to be gathered 
from them of the manners and habits of our forefathers in 
the reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and a part of that of 
Henry VII., into which they extend. In them are to be 
found many antiquated forms of expression, but one reads 
them without difficulty. 

Original works of any kind in the fifteenth century w T ere 
rare in England, and of these none possessed much merit. 
Not only were literary men servilely devoted to plagiarism, 
and to translation, both of which are repressing to native 
talent, but the age was singularly unproductive of genius. 
Of the innumerable petty poets of the age, one has become 
famous, but not for his poetry ; for the Worke of Sapience 
is not wholly forgotten, only because, as the production of 
William Oaxtox, it is associated with the introduction into 
England of the art of printing. This great art had been 
invented only a few years before.* Caxton, then residing in 
France, had learned it; and in the year 1467 printed the 
first book in France, the Recueil des Histoires de Troye. It 
is remarkable that this was also the first book printed in 
English; a translation of it having been printed by Caxton 
at Cologne, in the year 1471 ; though the Game of Chess, a 
small work, has the honor of having been the first book (in 
1474) which was actually printed in England, f 

* The priority of the invention has been the subject of much dispute. 
It is generally conceded, however, that the invention of ?novablc types is 
due to John Gutenberg, of Strasburg, and the casting of types in a matrix 
to Peter Schozpfer, who was associated with him. John Faust, for 
whom also the invention is claimed, seems to have helped them with 
money, and was probably a partner in the profits. The Durandi Ratio- 
7iale, the first book printed with cast-metal types, appeared in 1459. 

f Dun. Hist. Fie, ii. 114. "The books printed at Florence, down to 
1500, are 300: at Milan, 029; at Bologna, 298; at Rome, 925 ; at Venice, 
v 835; fifty other Italian cities had printing-presses in the fifteenth cen- 



56 CHAUCER. 

When we think of the greatness of the art of printing, and 
consider how promptly an import-ant' invention of the pres- 
ent day is applied to practical uses, it appears strange that, 
from this time until the close of the century, a period of 
more than twenty-fire years, there should have been printed 
in England less than one hundred and fifty books. But, 
apart from the efforts of the first possessors of the art to 
confine the knowledge of it to as few persons as possible, 
irs introduction was at the time of a low state of all kinds 
of learning, when even the universities were but poorly pa- 
tronised. The benign consequences of the invention were 
gradually and surely manifested in the great diminution of 
the price of books (soon reduced to one-fifth of what it was 
before), and the increased diffusion of the knowledge of 
them among the people. 

turv. At Paris, the number of books is 751 : at Cologne, 530 : at Nurem- 
burg ; 382 ; at Leipsie, 351; at Basle, 320 ; a: S:rasburg, 526 : at Augsburg, 
256; atLouvain, 116: at Mentz, 134: at Deventer, 169. XL num- 

ber printed in England seems to be 141 : whereof 130 at London and 
Westminster, 7 at Oxford, 4 at St. Albans." (Hall., i. 135.; 



CHAPTER VII. 

Increased Study of Ancient Literature in England — Grocyn— Linacre 
— Erasmus — Opposed by the Friends of the Scholastic Philosophy 
— The Reformation ; not at first favorable to learning — Sir Thomas 
More — Wyat and Surrey — Persecutions of Edward VI. and Mary 
— Versification of the Psalms — Sternhold and Hopkins — Tye — 
Cranmer. 

Modern history begins with the capture of Constantino- 
ple by the Turks under Mohammed II. in 1453. Two most 
important results were the consequences of this event: First, 
the closure of the ordinary route of travel and traffic to the 
East compelled a search for other ways of reaching the 
Indies, and hence the adventurous voyages, westward across 
the Atlantic and eastward around the Cape of Good Hope, 
which led to such momentous discoveries in both hemi- 
spheres. Second, the overthrow of the Eastern Empire drove 
the men of learning and letters among the Greeks to seek a 
refuge in Western Europe, and this brought about the great 
revival of learning. 

Toward the close of the fifteenth century the revival of 
classical learning, which, a century before, had begun in 
Italy, extended to England. The first considerable impulse 
in this direction was given by Vitelli, an Italian, who, in 
the year 1488, delivered a course of lectures on Greek litera- 
ture at the University of Oxford. Roused by these lectures, 
with a desire for further knowledge, Grocyn, an English- 
man, afterward repaired to Italy, where he became the pupil 
of the learned Politian, the historian of the Conspiracy of 

3* 



58 THE BEFOBMATIOX. 

the Pazzu and tutor to the children of Lorenzo de Medici. 
Under his instructions. Grocyn acquired, and carried wi:h 
him on his return to Ei gland, those stores of knowledge 

?li earned for him from posterity the name of the patri- 
arch of ancient learning. His example was followed bv 
"William Latimer, and Thomas Linacre. a physician. The 
latter is distinguished for being the restorer in England 
of the medical system of Hippocrates, which had been lost 
in the occult sciences and the mystic arts of the Arabs. At 
t b ? instance of a few persons. Erasmus, the best scholar in 
Europe, was induced to come over to England, where he 
taught Greek at Cambridge. It is an evidence of the dis- 
couragements with which such efforts were made, that this 
eminent man had but few hearers of his instructions. One 
reason of this was the opposition which the new studies met 
from the friends of the Scholastic philosophy. The monks. 
tied only in the jargon of the schools, saw. in the success 
of Latin and Greek literature, the loss of their reputation 
and oceupatiem. and the old cry. that heathen lore was hos- 
tile to Christian theology, became loud and violent. Nor 
were wars of words the only ones which were fought : these 
dialecticians, not able by their logic nor their remonstran- 
ces to extirpate the heresy, proceeded to blows: and the 
peaceful shades of literary retreat were frequently disturbed 
by riots between the disciples of Aquinas and the lovers of 
Greek and Latin poetry. 

But the Seed sown only wanted time to produce its harvest. 
Nor was this long in making its appearance. In the year 
1500. Lillye. known since as the great grammarian, after a 
thorough education in Greek at Ehodes. and in Latin at Borne, 
opened a public school for the study of Greek at St. Paul's, 
in London. The practice of educating youths in the mon- 
asteries was already falling into disuse, and numerous gram- 
mar-schools were established. In 151 T. Fox. Bishop of Win- 



FIRST EFFECTS ON LETTERS. 59 

Chester, founded professorships in Greek and Latin at Oxford. 
The king (Henry VIII.) and Cardinal Wolsey seconded 
these movements. A professorship, similar to those at 
Oxford, was established at Cambridge by the king ; and Wake- 
field, an Englishman, then at the University of Tubingen, 
was sent for to occupy it. The classical tastes, thus reviving 
in the universities, found their way through the royal favor 
to the court, and Latin comedies and interludes made a con- 
siderable portion of the exercises on public occasions. So 
rapidly were classical studies advancing when the great Refor- 
mation began. 

It is difficult to praise too highly the influence which this 
memorable revolution has had upon the destinies of mankind. 
But it is certainly true that its immediate consequences were 
unfavorable, not only to classical, but to all other learning. 
This will not appear strange, when we consider what few 
opportunities any important revolution allows for the enjoy- 
ment of that leisure which is so necessary for the prosecution 
of literary pursuits. When men's minds are excited by ap- 
prehensions for the stability of present states of things, for 
the preservation of their property and freedom, books are 
seldom read, and learning sensibly declines. It was espe- 
cially thus at the Reformation, — a revolution not of govern- 
ment, but of opinion ; and of opinion on the most exciting 
and vital of all subjects, religion. Notwithstanding the 
munificent patronage which those enlightened pontiffs, 
Popes Nicholas V. and Leo X., had extended to the restora- 
tion of classical learning, yet among the clergy generally 
there was much of that jealousy of the diffusion of knowl- 
edge among the laity which prevailed in the middle ages. 
It is true that in Germany, at the close of that controversy 
between the monks and the celebrated Reuchlin, upon the 
endeavors of the former to burn all the Hebrew books, except 
the Bible, resulting in the suspension of the order which 



60 TEE REFORMATIOX. 

they had se; ■■ ". ::r that purpose, the cause of classical 
aing became a \ : v ".I.ar eue wi:h :he enemies of v 
reniacy. and the : ;rs: classical scholars wore 

tiou by Faith, so boldly promulgated by Luther, withdrew 
the minds of men from books, and directed them to the 

that was gratifying to the pride and sustaining t:> the nones 
of unlettered men. that without the slow and tedious acquisi- 
tion of learning, they might, each for himself, judge of the 
meauiur of the Inspired Word : and it was therefore natural 

: they should, at last, come to despise all learning which 
did not refer immediately to the concern of the salvation of 
souls. Such was the tendency of affairs when the genius 
of Melanchthon. perceiving the importance of classical learn- 
ing in theological controversy, threw the weight of his influ- 
ence in behalf of the latter. By his unwearied exertions. 

; a ;:y the* co-operation of Camerarius. this tendency wa.s 
stopped, and Greek and Roman literature, in the next gen- 

ever before in the lyceums and gymnasiums of Germany. 

The decline of ancient learning, first consequent upon the 
Reformation, was felt in England as elsewhere. The disgust 
of the kin z for his oueen. and his love for Anne Bolevn. 
sufficient arguments in the mind of such a man to induce a 
change of religious opinions, added to the already extensive 
influence of the principles of WyclifFe. produced an alienation 
from the pope, which, at length, ended in a final separation. 
With the natural impetuosity and Selfishness of his disposi- 
tion, the most eminent talent and learning among his pe : 
were subordinated to the work of justifying his acts and Srn- 
timents. and of establishing his claim to the ridit of ruling 



SIR THOMAS MORE. 61 

according to his own will, irresponsible to any earthly tribu- 
nal — a claim which became famous and popular with Protest- 
ant princes, under the name of the divine right of kings, 
in opposition to the Roman Catholic doctrine, that, for 
certain causes, the sufficiency of which ought to be judged 
of by the Holy Father, a nation might depose its king, 
punish him for his breach of its confidence, and raise another 
to his place. 

This decline of classical learning has been attributed, in 
great part, to the destruction of the monasteries. But the 
facts that they had long since ceased to be the only deposi- 
tories of that learning, and that they were now under 
entire subjection to the Scholastic philosophy, show that the 
consequences of their destruction were much less disastrous 
than has been generally supposed. The same tendencies, 
before mentioned as prevailing in Germany, prevailed in 
England; and the longer, because there no man like Me- 
lanchthon arose to withstand them. An Englishman with 
just enough learning to read, with the Bible in his hand, 
expounding its doctrines for himself, thought himself to be in 
want of no other earthly aid; and classical and general lite- 
rature were naturally neglected, while the mind of the nation 
was occupied in that exposition, resulting as it did in the 
origin of so many sects with so many varieties of tenets. 

There was one man, however, whose elegant tastes, had 
they been directed to classical studies entirely, were sufficient 
to have made him the rival of Melanchthon in these, as he 
was in the possession of those eminent virtues which have 
elicited for both the admiration of mankind. This was Sir 
Thomas More. His genius, his wit, his accurate scholar- 
ship, and his gentle disposition, had, when he was but a youth, 
attracted the notice and won the friendship of Erasmus, when 
he came to England; and much of the hitters time, while 
he resided there, was spent in his society. His hours of leis- 



62 THE BEFOBMATION. 

ure in professional and political life were devoted to literary 
pursuits, in which the study of Greek and Soman literature 
was eagerly cultivated. His end afforded an early warning 
that the persecutions which had disgraced theEoman Catho- 
lic Church, and which had excited terror and hatred in the 
minds of so many people, were to be imitated by its opposers. 
Adhering to the ancient religion, after the separation of the 
king, he ardently wished to retire from the dangerous emi- 
nence of the chancellorship, and renew those studies which 
were well suited to his gentle nature. His conscientious 
fidelity to his faith, his courage in the face of persecution, 
his uncomplaining surrender to the fate which ended his 
career, and the sorroAv which his death spread throughout 
Europe, form one of the most pathetic passages in history. 

A man actively occupied with his profession and with 
political affairs has but little leisure for the study of other 
things. What More was able to obtain, he industriously 
employed. He wrote a History of Edward V. But the work 
for which he is mostly distinguished is the Utopia, a scheme 
of an imaginary republic, in imitation of the Eepublic of 
Plato. These are the first works in our language in which 
we are able to recognise a really good English prose style. 
The productions of the leisure of a professional man and a 
busy statesman, they afford the evidence of what he might 
have done, had his life been wholly given to letters. 

The following extract is from his Dialogue concerning 

Heresies. 

" I remember me that I have hard my father tele of a begger that in 
Kyng Henry his daies the sixt, cam with his wife to Saint Albonis. 
And there was walking about the towne, begging, a five or six dayes 
before the kinges commynge thither, saienge that he was borne blinde 
and never sawe in hys lyfe. And was warned in hys dreame that he 
shoulde come out of Berwyke, where lie said he had ever dwelled, to 
seke Saint Albon, and that he had been at his shryne and had not 
been holpen. And therefore he woulde go seke hym at some other 



WYAT AND SURREY. 63 

place, for he had hard some say sins he came that Sainct Albonys 
body shold be at Colon, and, in dede, such a contencionhatli ther ben. 
Bat of troth, as I am surely informed, he lieth here at Saint Albonis, 
saving some reliques of him, which thei there shew shrined. But to 
tell } r ou forth, whan the kyng was comen, and the towne full, sodayn- 
lye, \\\y$ blind man, at Saint Albonys shrine, had his sight agayne, 
and a myracle solemply rongen, and Te Deum songen, so that noth- 
yng was talked of in al the towne but this myracle. So happened it 
than that duke Hum fry of Glocester, a great wyse man and very wel 
lerned, having great joy to se such a myracle, called the pore man 
unto hym. And first shewing him self joyouse of Goddes glory as 
shewed in the getting of his sight, and exorting hym to mekenes, and 
to none ascribing of any part the worship to him self nor to be 
proude of the peoples pra} r se, which would call hym a good and a 
godly man thereby. At last he loked well upon his eyen, and asked 
whyther he could never se nothing at al, in all his life before. And 
whan as well his wyfe as him self, affirmed fastely no, than he loked 
advisedly upon his eien again, and said: I beleve you very wel, for 
me thinketh that ye cannot se well yet. Yea, syr, quoth he, I thanke 
God and his holy marter, I can se nowe as well as any man. Ye can, 
quoth the Duke : what colour is my gowne ? Than anone the beg- 
ger told him. What colour, quoth he, is this mans gowne ? He 
told him also ; and so forthe, without any sticking, he told him the 
names of al the colours that coulde bee shewed him. And whan my 
lord saw that, he bad him ' walk, faytoure,' and made him be set openly 
in the stockes. For, though he could have sene soudenly by miracle 
the dyfference betwene divers colours, yet coulde he not by the syght 
so sodenly tel the names of all these colours, but if he had known 
them before." 

The reign of Henry VIII. is not without other names of 
some literary distinction. Those of Sir Thomas Wtat and 
of the Earl of Surrey are associated in the fame of being, 
as they are styled in the Arte of English Poesie, "the two 
chief lanterns of light to all others that have since employed 
their pennes upon English poesie/' and of whom it is said in 
the same work, that "their conceits were loftie, their styles 
stately, their conveyance clearly, their termes proper, their 
meetre sweete and well proportioned, in all imitating very 
naturally and studiously their maister, Francis Petrarcha." 
They were both disciples of the school of Petrarch, and were 



64 THE BEFOBMATIOK 

the first writers of sonnets in our language. Surrey has also 
the honor of being the originator of English blank-verse, 
following the example of the later Italians in their abolition 
of Leonine verses. 

A good deal of romance has been written about the love 
of Surrey for "the Fair Geraldine," but it has no solid 
foundation. The lady in question is supposed to have been 
the daughter of Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare, but she 
was a mere child of thirteen, and Surrey was a married man, 
of whom we have no grounds for suspecting that his affec- 
tions were placed elsewhere than where they were due. The 
story seems to have grown from the fact that in one single 
sonnet he praises the little lady in the gallant phraseology- 
of the time ; and we cannot hesitate to place 

"The murdered Surrey's love, the tears of Geraldine," 

among the pretty myths of antiquity. 

The Earl of Surrey fell a victim to the jealousy and sus- 
picion of Henry VIII. The specific charge brought against 
him was, that he caused the arms of the king to be embla- 
zoned on the same shield with his own. He was found 
guilty of high treason, and beheaded, January 21, 1547. 

A specimen of his style may be seen in the following son- 
net : 

Love, that livetli and reigneth in my thought, 
That built his seat within my captive breast, 
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought, 

Oft in my face he doth his banner rest. 
She, that taught me to love, and suffer pain, 
My doubtful hope, and eke my hot desire, 
With shamefast cloak to shadow and restrain, 
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire; 
And coward Love then to the heart apace 

Taketh his flight ; whereas he lurks, and plains 
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face. 

For my Lord's guilt thus, faultless, bide I pains : 
Yet from my Lord shall not my foot remove ; 
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by love. 



DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS. 65 

Wyat has been considered by some inferior to Surrey. He 
may not, perhaps, equal him in the elegance of his sonnets, 
but in other forms of lyric poetry he surpassed him. There 
is exquisite pathos and nature in many of his songs, of which 
the following is a beautiful example : 

And wilt thou leave me thus ? 

Say nay ! say nay ! for shame, 

To save thee from the blame 

Of all my grief and grame. 
And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
Say nay ! say nay ! 

And wilt thou leave me thus, 

That hath loved thee so long 

In wealth and woe among ? 

And is thy heart so strong 
As for to leave me thus ? 

Say nay ! say nay ! 

And wilt thou leave me thus ? 

That hath given thee my heart 

Never for to depart, 

Neither for pain nor smart ; 

And wilt thou leave me thus ? 

Say nay ! say nay ! 

And wilt thou leave me thus, 

And have no more pity 

Of him that loveth thee ? 

Alas, thy cruelty ! 
And wilt thou leave me thus ? 
Say nay ! say nay ! 

Henry VIII. was not a religious bigot, and hence had no 
objection to learning, provided it threw no impediment in 
the way of his rapacity. Beyond that decline, therefore, 
which was natural to the first change of opinion in regard 
to matters of religious faith, there was no other during his 
reign; but, upon the whole, a more extensive acquaintance 
with profane literature at its close than at its beginning. It 
was during the two succeeding reigns of the Protestant 



G6 THE REFORMATION. 

Edward and the Catholic Mary that this decline was the 
most rapid under the persecutions which they carried on. 
Punishments for heresy were common to both the great 
creeds of the Church. In those bloody struggles which arose 
when the question of what should be the national religion 
was being decided, the universities lost not only their 
patronage, but many of their books and manuscripts. In 
the reign of Edward VI.. through the bigoted zeal of Cox. 
afterward Bishop of Ely. great numbers of the ancient 
manuscripts were destroyed, not only in public, but in pri- 
vate libraries. Of the library which was bequeathed to 
Oxford University by Humphrey,. Duke of Gloucester, only 
one book, a copy of Valerius Maximus. escaped mutilation. 
During the reign of this king, the favorite employment of 
the educated pious was theological writing and the transla- 
tion of the Scriptures into English rhyme. Calvin, in his 
hatred of the Eoman Catholic Church, had reduced religious 
service to the simple acts of prayer, preaching, and singing. 
To compensate for the choral chants of the Te Deum. the 
Jubilate, the Nunc Dimittis. etc.. the Psalms were set to 
simple music and sung by the whole congregation. This 
practice came to be imitated in England, and versions of the 
Psalms were made by Thomas Sternhold and John Hopkins. 
Metrical versions of portions of the Xew Testament were 
also produced. That of the Acts of the Apostles, by Chris- 
topher Tye. a doctor of music, found great favor with the 
pious Edward, and used to be sung in his chapel. The 
greatest name in this reign is that of Cranmer, who. how- 
ever, belongs rather to the history of politics and the Church 
than to that of literature. His writings greatly helped the 
cause of the Pieformation. " A divine and a courtier." as he 
is called by Macaulay, he found it hard to reconcile his dif- 
ferent duties. Brought to the stake by Mary, his courageous 
death is familiar to all. 



OTHER WRITERS. 67 

The reign of Mary was equally discouraging to classical 
learning. The queen herself was eminently learned, and 
patronised the universities; but only for the purpose of 
making them her instruments for the complete establishment 
of the Catholic faith, in her blind but sincere attachment to 
which she was always ready to build up whatever would 
advance, and to destroy whatever would retard, its progress. 

OTHER WRITERS OF THIS PERIOD. 

[The date appended is, in most cases, that of the appearance of the author's first 
work.] 

King James I. of Scotland. . . = .Poetry 1424 

The Earl of Worcester Translations (ex'd) 1470 

Sir John Fortescue Political Treatises 1480 

John Harding Chronicles 1480 

Earl Rivers Translations (ex'd) 1483 

Sir Thomas Malory Translations 1485 

Alexander Barclay .... Translations 1508 

Stephen Hawes Allegorical Poetry 1517 

William Tyndale Translation of Bible 1526 

Sir Thomas Elyot Politics 1530 

Bishop Latimer Sermons 1550 






CHAPTEE VIII. 

Accession of Elizabeth — The .Jesuits revive the Study of Classical 
Learning — Elizabeth a Patroness ■: : Lei?, ruing — Ascham — Sir Henry 
Saville — Aschani's Encouragement to Original Compositions ; his 
Toxopliilus and Schoolmaster; his Hatred of the Italian Novels — 
The Study of the Italian Poets, Ariosto, Boiardo, and Pulci — 
Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst — The Mirror for Magistrates. 

So numerous and illustrious are the names which adorn 
the latter years of the reign of Elizabeth, that post-::: 
has given to the whole of it the appellation of the Augustan 
Age of English literature, though its earlier years exhibited 
no very manifest signs of progress. We have seen that what 
classical learning there was among our ancestors ar her acces- 
sion, was possessed mostly by the Protestant clergy whc 
in exile. Besides, it was yet too early for the minds of men . nsy 
as they were determining upon creeds and forms ■;:' worship, 
either to find leisure for the prosecution of classical studies, 
or to comprehend their importance to theological controversy. 
It has appeared how the Koman Catholic clergy were pre- 
judiced against such studies, and how their encouragement, 
under the influence of Melanchthon, had been made so 
instrumental in the cause of Protestantism in Germany. 
Profiting by this example, the order of Jesus, newly founded 
by Loyola, became the most ardent patrons of ancient lit- 
erature, and arrested the decline of papal supremacy ::: 
Europe. Seeing the value of learning by what it had ac- 
complished in the hands of the Reformers, the Jesuits 
devoted themselves to it with the greatest ardor. Thev ob- 



ELIZABETH. 69 

tained possession of the schools and universities, and for the 
wretched text-books which had been used in them, substi- 
tuted others of far superior character, and placed education 
on so admirable a basis, that many of the sons of Protestants 
were sent to them to be educated. Henceforth the clergy 
of the ancient Church were fully competent to sustain con- 
troversy with the ablest ecclesiastics of the new. It was not 
until Protestantism was firmly established in England, when 
English Protestants had no more to fear from persecution, 
that their minds, made free for all pursuits, became again 
devoted to those studies which were found to be so neces- 
sary for all the purposes of civilisation and religion. It is 
remarkable that, in England and in every European nation, 
the national literature should have been preceded by the 
restoration of ancient letters. The darkness of the middle 
ages will appear the greater, when we consider how few 
men of genius they produced. This circumstance, together 
with the crude state of the modern languages, rendered the 
translation of the works of the wise of ancient times easier 
and more beneficial to learning than the production of origi- 
nal compositions. It is therefore the more easily to be ac- 
counted for, that the progress of the art of printing was at 
first so slow ; for it was mainly devoted to the printing of 
classical books in their originals, and of the translation of 
them, a work for which few were competent. A just pun- 
ishment for the barbarous destruction of the works of the 
ancients seemed to be the refusal of civilisation to advance 
until they were restored. 

Elizabeth was a liberal Patroness of classical learning. 
In her youth she had been the pupil of one of the wisest 
and best of men, Eoger Ascham. Under his pupilage, the 
future sovereign had been well instructed in the classics ; 
so well, that she was able to speak in both the Latin and 
Greek languages. The bias thus received became most use- 



70 ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH, 

ful when the possession of power rendered her able to direct 
it. In spite of the hindrances before mentioned, ancient 
literature came, by her influence, to be again cultivated with 
ardor. In the ceremonials of the court, and in her frequent 
progresses,* classical representations were multiplied without 
number ; and the great queen delighted in nothing so much 
as in being compared with the celebrated beauties of ancient 
mythology. 

This preference of the sovereign for classical studies, and, 
what was far better, the freedom of prosecuting them enjoyed 
by the laity, led to repeated translations of Greek and 
Latin authors, and the more accurate and successful study 
of these in their originals. The exiled clergy returning, the 
universities began to revive, and a purer taste was cultivated 
within them; producing, in good time, many eminent men 
among the laity. The most eminent of these was Sir Henry 
Saville. Already distinguished when a young man for his 
scholarship, he made a tour in Europe for the better prose- 
cution of his studies, and devoted to them the remainder of 
a long life. Of other classical scholars, the names of Cam- 
den, Phaier, and Troine are prominent ; though Phaier be- 
longs rather to the age of Mary than to that of Elizabeth. 
It was the translations of these two latter which became the 
classics of the numerous poets which were now appearing. 

And now the time had come, when not only was there the 
talent for original compositions, but the English language, 
after numerous mutations, had grown to be thoroughly fitted 
for their expression. Heretofore, the writings of Sir Thomas 
More had been almost the only works in which a good En- 
glish style was to be found. Now, the translation of the 
Scriptures, their unrestrained study by persons of all ranks, 
the abolition of the monopoly of learning among the clergy, 

* Stately official journeys of the sovereign through various parts of 
the kingdom. 



ROGER ASCHAM. 71 

the prevalence of the principles of good government, the 
long continuance of peace, and the unprecedented progress 
of the peaceful arts, all contributed to develop the genius 
and the language of the English people, with a rapidity 
which has never been surpassed in the history of any nation. 
They might not thenceforward equal the European nations,- 
who yet adhered to the practice of producing their greatest 
works in Latin, in the number of illustrious scholars, but 
they made their language the best of all modern tongues, 
and were infinitely more successful in the cultivation of 
native talent and in the diffusion of knowledge among 
themselves. 

The man who led the way in this departure from the esta- 
blished precedents in literature was Eoger Ascham : one well 
fitted for such a work; as, so far from haying any prejudice 
against Greek and Roman literature, he was well instructed 
in both, and, as a professor at Cambridge, had been signally 
successful in reviving classical studies after that neglect 
w T hich they had suffered during the first years of the Refor- 
mation. From his professorship he had been called by the 
Princess Elizabeth to superintend her studies. From no 
jealousy of the ancient languages, but from an ardent love 
and appreciation of them, and a noble ambition to make his 
own their rival, he set the example of writing his own works 
in it. " As for the Lattinne or Greeke tongue," he said in 
apology for this course, "euerye thinge is so excellentlye 
done in them, that none can do better. In the Englishe 
tongue contrary, euerye thing in a manner so meanlye, both 
for the matter and handelinge, that no man can do worse. 
For therein the learned for the most part have bene alwaves 
most redye to write. And they which had least hope in 
Lattinne have bene most bould in Englishe: when surely 
euerye man that is most ready to talke, is not most able to 
write. He that will write well in any tongue must follow 



72 ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH. 

this counsell of Aristotle: to speake as the common people 
do, to thinke as wise men do. And so shonlde euerye man 
understand him, and the iudgement of wise men allowe him. 
Manye Englishe writers have not done so; but usinge 
straunge wordes, as Lattinne, French, and Italian, do make 
all thinges darke and harde. Ones I communed with a man 
which reasoned the Englishe tongue to be enriched and 
encreased thereby, sayinge, Who will not prayse that feast 
where a man shall drincke at a dinner both wyne, ale, and 
beere ? Truly, quoth I, they be al good, eyerye one taken 
by himselfe alone ; but if you put malmesye and sacke, redde 
wyne and white, ale and beere, and al in one pot, you shall 
make a drinke neither easye to be knowen, nor yet holsome 
for the bodye." The works of Ascham, Tooiophilus (a work 
on Archery), and The Schoolmaster, though now seldom 
read, can never be forgotten for the impulse which they 
gave to the cultivation of native literature. 

Heretofore but few attempts had been made in English for 
the establishment of any regular system of grammar, and 
especially of rhetoric; and though we have been always 
behind the nations of Europe in this respect, yet the advice 
and example of Ascham soon suggested the importance of 
this branch of learning. The first considerable work on 
rhetoric was by Thomas Wilsok, a dean of Durham, and 
secretary of the king. It is a system founded upon the 
maxims of Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian. Though this 
book was written in the reign of Mary, yet the author more 
properly belongs to the age of Elizabeth, in whose counsels 
he afterward bore a prominent part. The publication in 
English of the principles of an art which had heretofore 
been studied only in the learned tongues was gravely cen- 
sured by the Eoman clergy; so much so, indeed, that Wilson, 
happening afterward to be at Eome on a visit, was impris- 
oned by the Inquisition as a heretic. 



ITALIAN NOVELS. 73 

From very different motives than those from which Ascham 
discouraged the translations of Greek and Latin authors, did 
he oppose those of the Italian, which were now being made 
in great numbers, and were exerting a powerful, and, in his 
opinion, an injurious, influence upon learning and even upon 
morals. It has been shown before what influence the Italian 
novels had upon the mind of Chaucer. But the light which 
shone so brilliantly on his appearance, went out at his death. 
It was not until one hundred and fifty years afterward, that 
the intercourse of English scholars with Italy renewed the 
acquaintance with these novels. They were the Decameron 
of Boccaccio, the Hundred Tales of Cinthio, those of Sachet- 
ti, Bandello, and others ; some borrowed from the Fabliaux 
of France, some from the Milesian and other Eastern stories, 
which the exiles from Constantinople had brought into 
Italy; and others founded upon the incidents of Italian 
every-day life. These tales having been brought into En- 
gland, the country soon became flooded with translations of 
them, which the rapidly-increasing numbers of those who 
could read devoured with the greatest eagerness. The vir- 
tuous Ascham was alarmed by the immoral tendencies of 
the new literature. 

" Bad enough," lie indignantly exclaimed, " ware the old bookes of 
chiualrie, such as the Morte Arthur, the whole pleasure of which 
booke standeth in two specyall poyntes, in open manslaughter and 
bold bawdre : in which booke those be counted the noblest knights 
that doe kill most men without any quarrell, and commit foulest wick- 
ednesses by sutlest shifts.* And yet," he continues, " ten Morte Ar- 
thures doe not the tenth part so much harme as one of those bookes 
made in Italie, and translated in England. They open, not fond and 
common ways to vice, but such suttle, cunning, new and diuerse shifts 
to carry yong willes to vanitie, and yong wittes to mischiefe, to teach 
old bawdes new school pointes, as the simple head of an Euglishman 
is not liable to inuent, nor never was heard of in England before, yea, 
when Papisterie overflowed all. Suffer these bookes to be read, and 

* Dun., Hist. Fie, i. 367. 
4 



74 ACCESSION OF ELIZABETH. 

they shall soon displace all bookes of godly learning. For they, car- 
rying the will to vanitie, and marring good manners, shall easily cor- 
rupt the minde with ill opinions and false indgement in doctrine : first 
to think ill of all true religion, and at last to think nothinge of God 
himselfe." 

But in spite of Ascliam's remonstrances and his warnings, 
these " ungracious" books continued to be read, and fur- 
nished the ideas of the greatest dramas that have since been 
produced. 

There was another class of Italian works, quite differing 
from the novels, which were beginning to be studied, and 
which gave direction to the mind of the then greatest poet 
of England. These were the romances of the Italian poets, 
of Ariosto, Boiardo, Pulci, and other of the Gothic school. 
They were the Orlando Furioso, the Orlando Inamorato, 
and the Morgante Maggiore, which, founded on the chival- 
rous tales of the Troubadours of Provence, inspired the 
genius of Spenser. 

But before proceeding to him, it is proper to mention the 
name of Thomas Sackville, Loed Buckhurst, one of the 
best ministers of Elizabeth. He, like Sir Thomas More, 
found time, in the midst of his public duties, for the study 
of polite learning, and, like him yet further, his life afforded 
a bright illustration of gentleness and virtue. So elegant 
were his accomplishments as a scholar and orator, that even 
in the Star Chamber Court, he was called "the Star Cham- 
ber Bell." The work for which he is most distinguished is 
Tlie Mirrour for Magistrates, which was begun by him in 
1557. The design of it is to commemorate the lives of the 
most distinguished persons in English history, from the 
Conquest to the end of the fourteenth century, who were 
unfortunate. These are represented as passing before the 
poet, who has descended into the infernal regions, and each 
reciting the story of his misfortunes. The Induction and 



LORD BUCKHURST. 75 

one legend, that of Henry Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, 
were written by him; the rest of the collection were by dif- 
ferent writers. The plan of the work was borrowed from a 
similar one of Boccaccio, called " De Casibus Principum;" 
and suggested many things not only to Spenser, but espe- 
cially to the writers of the English historic drama. 
The title of this work reads thus : 

" A Myrroure for Magistrates, wherein may be seen by example 
of others, with howe greevous plages vices are punished, and howe frayl 
an unstable worldly prosperitie is founde, even of those whom fortune 
seemeth most highly to favour. Felix quem faciant aliena pericula 
cautum. Anno 1559, Londini, in aedibus Thomas Marshe." 

The following sublime description is given of the realm 
of Pluto in the Induction : 

Thence come we to the horrour and the hell, 
The large great kyngdomes, and the dreadful raygne 
Of Pluto in his trone where he dyd dwell, 
The wide waste places, and the hugie playne ; 
The waylinges, shrykes, and sundry sorts of payne, 
The syghes, the sobbes, the depe and deadly groane, 
Earth, ayer, and all resounding playnt and moane. 

Thence did we pass the threefold emperie 
To the utmost bounds where Rhadamanthus raignes, 
Where proud folke waile their wofull miserie ; 
Where dreadfull din of thousand dragging chaines, 
And baleful shriekes of ghosts in deadly paines 
Tortured eternally are heard most brim, 
Through silent shades of night so darke and dim. 

Lord Buckhurst was also partly the author of the first 
English tragedy; but a notice of this and of the first 
comedy, which was nearly contemporary with it, is postponed 
until, in another place, an account of the rise of the modem 
drama shall be given. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Spenser: his friendship with Sir Philip Sidney— The Shepherd's Cal- 
endar — Sidney's Arcadia and Defense of Poesie — Burleigh's Jealousy 
of Leicester — The Faerie Queene, and other Poems — Sir Walter 
Raleigh ; his History of the World. 

Two hundred years had now elapsed since the death of 
Chaucer, and no other man of great eminence had yet ap- 
peared in the walks of literature. "We have seen what were 
some of the mutations which learning underwent before 
and during the progress of the Reformation. Elizabeth had 
been on the throne for full half the years of her long reign, 
before that brilliant light shone out which, great as was the 
fame of her. statesmen, rendered yet greater that of her 
poets. The wise and liberal encouragement which she, in 
the earlier years of her reign, afforded to the pursuit of let- 
ters, was destined to produce, in time, its proper results. 
The first, and, with one exception, the greatest of these was 
Edmuxd Spexser. He was born in London in the year 
1553, and received his two degrees at the University of 
Cambridge. Early in life he became the friend of that gal- 
lant soldier and most finished gentleman in England, Sir 
Philip Sidney. By him he had been introduced to the Earl 
of Leicester, Sir Philip's uncle, then in high favor with 
Queen Elizabeth. Long the guest of Sir Philip in his castle 
of Penshurst, these two friends, equal in age, and equal in 
their admiration of beauty and valor, were wont to wander 
together through the now almost neglected regions of chiv- 
alry, and both caught inspiration from the lives of the brave 



SIDNEY AND SPENSER. 77 

men and the fair women who inhabited them. But while 
the heroic temper of the one inclined him to seek for glory 
in the tented field, the mild genius of the other led him to 
endeavor to restore the ages that were past, by the reproduc- 
tion of the characters which had rendered them so famous. 
And yet the former found time, amid the duties of the court 
and camp, for those quiet pursuits which the example of 
his friend commended. Spenser had already written The 
Shepherd's Calendar, a series of twelve pastorals, in honor 
of the twelve months; which, though unequal to those of 
Virgil and Theocritus, are very far superior to those of his 
own age, in which the true idea of pastoral poetry was lost 
by placing in the mouths of shepherds and shepherdesses 
the polished language and the fine sentiments of the court. 
Sidney sought to do in prose what Spenser had done in 
verse, and to weave his pastorals into a narrative of romance. 
The Arcadia is a pleasing story, and the first really good 
prose-fiction in the language. It was, in its time, universally 
popular. But the greater part of its popularity passed away 
with the fervor of that admiration which all Europe felt for 
the chivalrous author ; and while every one is yet familiar 
with his dying words, there are but few who ever read the 
story of Pamela and Philoclea. Another production of 
Sidney was the Defense of Poesie. It is deserving of perusal 
not only for the beauty of its style and the justness of its 
sentiments, but for being the first effort of criticism which 
the English language has furnished. 

What at first seemed very fortunate for Spenser, the ac- 
quaintance and patronage of Leicester, proved in the end of 
little or no advantage. Never was there a sovereign of either 
sex who, to the vanity which delighted in the reception of 
extravagant praise, joined that unerring judgment which 
enabled Elizabeth to select the wisest men for the manage- 
ment of the affairs of her kiugdom, and to abide by their 



78 SPENSER AND RALEIGH. 

counsels through all her policy. For the brilliant Leicester 
she felt a tenderness which the wise Burleigh never for a 
moment was able, and probably never sought, to inspire. 
But while the former devoted himself, with every courtly 
grace, to the person of his mistress, in the vain hope of ac- 
quiring the ascendency in political affairs, and, what was 
yet a vainer hope, that of espousing her, the latter, by the 
steady devotion to her public interests, was enabled to pre- 
serve that ascendency against all rivals. By the influence 
of Leicester, the poet was introduced to the queen. But 
this very means of his introduction was sufficient to excite 
the jealousy of the lord chancellor, whose unceasing watch, 
of the favorite was ever pointing out to him the means of 
thwarting his designs. While the queen was delighted with 
the endless compliments which none knew so well as Spen- 
ser how to frame and to apply, the favor which he might 
well have expected, and which seemed to be ever on the 
point of coming, would yet not come. For many long years 
he depended upon the hopes of preferment which were, from 
time to time, kept' just alive by an occasional dole, rendered 
valuable by the gracious complacency with which it was 
ordered to be given ; and he learned, by the most bitter 
experience, the wretchedness of those who put their trust in 
princes. One cannot read the following stanza without 
pitying the agony which a sensitive mind must at last en- 
dure, when it remembers that the long servilities, the weary 
waitings, the numberless sacrifices of personal independence 
and manhood, and the ceaseless, sickening procrastinations, 
were all done and suffered in vain : 

Full little know est thou who hast not tried, 
What hell it is in suing long to bide ; 
To lose good days that might be better spent; 
To waste long nights in pensive discontent ; 
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow ; 
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow ; 



THE FAERIE QUEENE. 79 

To have thy prince's grace, yet want her peers' ; 
To have thy asking, yet wait many years ; 
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares ; 
To eat thy heart in comfortless despairs ; 
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run, 
To spend, to give, to want — to be undone. 

The reward which followed this long and painful service, 
and which royal and ministerial condescension pleased to 
consider munificent, was, first, a secretary's place under 
Lord Grey de Wilton; and afterward, a grant of three 
thousand acres of land, which had lately been forfeited to 
the crown in Ireland. The motive for the bestowal of this 
last gift, was, as Spenser well knew, any other than a kindly 
one on the part of Lord Burleigh. For to it was affixed the 
condition that he should make his residence there — a con- 
dition which he rightly regarded as amounting to banish- 
ment from court. He nevertheless repaired to it, and took 
his residence in the Castle of Kilcolman, on the banks of the 
Mulla. 

Hard as at first must have appeared the destiny which 
compelled him to submit to this virtual exile from his 
native country, it was well for the fame of the poet that it 
was thus. Away from the corruptions and waitings of the 
court, his mind was again rendered free to develop those 
impulses which it could but always feel. In this romantic 
country, " by Mulla's shore," which, in spite of his yearning 
for the life he had led before, he learned, like a true poet, 
to love ardently and tenderly, he conceived and executed his 
great poem, The Faerie Quee?ie. 

A distinguishing characteristic of poetry from the earliest 
times is its fondness for allegorical fable. The Greek and 
Koman classics employed it much. The dramatic represen- 
tations of the middle ages, of which an account will here- 
after be given, abounded in it. The mind of Spenser, tilled 



80 SPENSER AND BALEIGH. 

with all the lore of the age of chivalry, and melancholy with 
the thought that it had passed away, sought to renew the 
love of mankind for its heroic actions by an allegorical 
poem, which, in twelve books, was to illustrate twelve 
virtues. And yet, never forgetting his desire of royal favor, 
he designed his poem to be a monument to the glory of 
Elizabeth; hoping for, among other things, those rewards 
which are always so dear to the courtier. Besides its general 
dedication by name to her, she is intended in the beautiful 
creations of Belphoebe and Gloriana. After the completion 
of the first three books, he brought them in triumph, and 
laid them at the feet of the sovereign, who, in being associ- 
ated with the great Arthur, and the knights and ladies of 
chivalry, received the most beautiful praise which one 
mortal had ever paid to another. It is the fairest of those 
garlands which the almost numberless poets, wits, scholars, 
warriors, and statesmen vied with one another in weaving 
for the great queen. Be warded with a pension of fifty 
pounds sterling a year, — a not very inconsiderable sum for 
that day, — Spenser returned to Ireland, and, in six years, 
produced three more books. Unequal as these were to the 
first three, they, notwithstanding, abound in passages of 
great beauty. 

It is sad to contemplate the incurable longing for the 
court which brought the poet back so often to England 
during the composition of his great work, and which prob- 
ably prevented the completion of his original intention to 
produce twelve books. His discontented spirit, growing impa- 
tient of restriction to the only tasks for which nature had, 
but with lavish partiality, designed him, he neglected these 
for politics, a career in which he was ill fitted to excel. 
Becoming unpopular with the Irish people, when the rebel- 
lion of Tyrone broke out, he was forced to flee from his 
castle, which had been set fire to by the insurgents. In the 






THE FAEEIE QUEENE. 81 

precipitation of his flight, he left behind his youngest child, 
who perished in the flames. On reaching London, sick with 
continued disappointments, and broken in heart by this last 
bereavement, he died at a tavern. 

There was once a story that the Faerie Queene was com- 
pleted, and that the last six books were lost in a- shipwreck ; 
but the general conclusion now is, that those which we have 
are the only ones he ever produced ; and of these, the last 
three are inferior to the first — a circumstance which furnishes 
some evidence that his original design was abandoned. By 
general admission, the first book is the best of all. It is the 
story (using the poet's own language) "of the Knight of 
the Kedcrosse, in whom I expresse Holyries." This knight 
was a Christian hero, 

And on his brest a bloodie crosse he bore, 
The dear remembrance of his dying Lord. 

He is loved by Una, who is the representative of the true 
church — is for a while seduced by Duessa, the type of the 
Eomish faith, but is eventually rescued by Una, with the 
assistance of Faith, Hope, and Charity. The second book 
is the story of Sir Guyon, representing Temperance; the 
third, of Britomartis, a " lady Knight," in whom Chastity is 
pictured. 

There are probably in this poem a greater number of beau- 
tiful images than in any other of the same length. There 
never lived a poet whose soul was more finely attuned to the 
love of beauty than Spenser's. The school in which he had 
been educated was that of Ariosto, the unequalled harmony 
of whose numbers had modelled the taste of Italy. But the 
serious and melancholy mind of the Englishman was incapa- 
ble of the gay and sprightly sallies of the Italian. Loving 
the romances of chivalry as he did, he loved only what was 
virtuous and even holy in them. "The ideal oi' chivalry, 

4* 



82 SPEXSEB AXD BALE1GH. 

ler derived from its didactic theory than from the pre- 
cedents of romance, is always before him : his morality is 
pure and even stern, with nothing of the libertine tone of 
Ariosto/' With the readers of the present day. when allego- 
ries, especially long-continued allegories, have ceased to be 
read with interest, it is not surprising that this work is not 
so great a favorite as it was in that age when this sort of 
composition had not become obsolete. Immediately on its 
publication, it became •'•' the delight of every accomplished 
gentleman, the model of every poet, the solace of every 
scholar." And even yet. whoever loves to read the senti- 
ments of a pure morality, in language the most beautiful in 
which they have ever been clothed, must read The Faerie 
Queene. 

The two following stanzas from the second book will 
give some idea of Spenser's style, and the melody of his 
versification. The form of the stanza is that which has 
been called K Spenserian," from the exquisite use of it by 
this poet. 

Eftsoones 1 they heard a most melodious sound 

Of all that mote delight a daintie eare, 
Such as attonee 2 might not on living ground, 

Save in this paradise, be heard elsewhere ; 

Right hard it was for wight which did it heare 
To rede what manner musicke that mote be ; 

For all that pleasing is to living eare, 
Was there consorted in one harmonie — 
Birdes, voices, instruments, windes, waters, all agree. 

The joyous birdes, shrouded in chearfull shade, 

Their notes unto the voice attempred sweet; 
Tli' angelicall soft trembling voyces made 

To th' instruments divine respondence meet; 

The silver-sounding instruments did meet 
With, the base murmure of the waters fail ; 

The waters fall, with difference discreet, 
ISTow soft, now loud, unto the wind did call ; 
The gentle, warbling wind low answered to all. 

1 Presently. "At once. 



SIR WALTER RALEIGH. 83 

The death of Sidney, sad as it was to all who could ad- 
mire his shining qualities, was the saddest to Spenser, to 
whom his friendship had been so dear and so valuable. Bat 
the loss of this friend was, to a considerable degree, compen- 
sated afterward by the attachment of Sir Walter Raleigh. 
The history of this renowned navigator is well known. When 
captivity had put an end to his schemes of ambition, Raleigh 
undertook a History of the World ; a laborious work, which, 
beginning at the Creation, had reached to the fall of the 
Macedonian Empire, one hundred and sixty-eight years be- 
fore Christ, when its author, long the object of the jealousy 
of the first of the Stuarts, was executed. This is the only 
considerable work of Sir Walter Ealeigh, and it furnishes 
evidence that if his life had been wholly devoted to letters, 
he would have become a distinguished author. Though by 
no means a great poet, yet he has left several short poems of 
much merit. 

The following extract from his History of the World will 
give an idea of Ealeigh's prose style. 

" Death, without speaking a word, persuades what God with his 
promises and threats cannot, though the one hateth and destroyeth 
man, whereas the other made and loveth him. I have considered 
(says Solomon) all w T orks that are done under the sun, and behold, all 
is vanity and vexation of spirit. Who believes this till Death beat it 
into us ? Death alone can make a man know himself, shew the proud 
and insolent that he is but abject, and can make him hate his fore- 
passed happiness ^ the rich man he proves a naked beggar, which 
hath interest in nothing but the gravel that fills his mouth ; and when 
he holds his glass before the eyes of the most beautiful, they see and 
acknowledge their own deformity and rottenness. 

" O eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could advise, 
thou hast persuaded ; what none hath presumed, thou hast done ; and 
whom all the world hath flattered, thou hast cast out of the world 
and despised. Thou hast drawn together all the extravagant great- 
ness, all the pride, cruelt} r , and ambition of man, and covered all over 
with two narrow words — Hicjacet" 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 
The Greek Drama— Mediaeval Drama— First English Plays. 

Ik the period of which we are now about to treat, the 
English language reached its highest development, and 
English genius blazed forth with a brilliancy which has 
never since been equalled. While judicious criticism arid 
progress in refinement have since given the language more 
precision, and style more delicacy, it has lost in the process 
that richness, picturesqueness, and flexibility which distin- 
guish the language of the Elizabethan age. The writers of 
that period, especially the poets, treat their language as a 
plastic substance, which they are free to mould and work 
into the forms -that best suit them; a process which would 
have resulted in the debasement of the tongue in the hands 
of men of less elevated and poetic temperament. Headers 
will be surprised, if they examine, to see how many of the 
most admired passages of Shakspeare are couched in forms 
of language which no writer of the present day would ven- 
ture to use, and how far they owe that peculiar and striking 
character which we call " Shakspearian," to these happy and 
audacious licenses of speech. 

In a survey of English Literature so condensed as the 
present volume necessarily must be, we cannot give an 
adequate account of even the greatest names of any period, 
and must therefore content ourselves with a selection from 
these. And our plan is to select that branch of literature 
which seems most characteristic of the period, and give of 
its chief writers such views as our space allows. 



INFL UENCES OF THE TIME, 85 

The Elizabethan period — a term which is ordinarily ap- 
plied to the period extending about half a century from the 
middle of Elizabeth's reign — was fruitful of excellence in 
almost every department of literature. As in the time of 
Edward III., which in many respects this period resembled, 
we can perceive the happy coincidence of both exterior and 
interior circumstances to favor the development of letters. 
Sufficient time had elapsed, since the Wars of the Eoses, for 
the country to recover from the devastation and despond- 
ency these had occasioned, and for the spirit of patriotism 
to revive stronger than ever before. This feeling was 
heightened by the relations of England with foreign powers. 
During the whole reign of Elizabeth, England can neither 
be said to have been at war nor at peace w T ith these. While 
there was nominal peace with Spain, English troops and 
commanders were sent to assist the revolted Dutch; and to 
sustain the Huguenots and Henry of Navarre, while there 
was nominal peace with Erance. In this way the English 
nation shared in the excitement and triumph of war, with- 
out feeling its severities ; and it was reserved for the occasion 
that threatened them with its worst horrors — the attempted 
invasion by the Spanish Armada — to crown their arms by 
the most extraordinary triumph and deliverance in the 
annals of naval warfare. The feelings produced by these 
circumstanoes have left a deep impress upon the literature 
of the day. Enthusiastic attachment to their own favored 
island; pride in the name of Englishman and in the mili- 
tary achievements of their countrymen; hopeful looking 
forward to a bright future, gave it a buoyancy and exuber- 
ance as of a nation first arrived at manhood, and exulting in 
the feeling of its powers.* 

As in the time of Chaucer, this period was further distin- 

* In fifty-two years there arose two hundred and thirty-three English 
poets. [Taine.] 



86 THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 

guislied by a great religious awakening. The doctrines of 
the Eeformers and the opposition which they aroused, had 
excited a strong and deep interest in spiritual things. Men 
of either faith had not only heard the highest eloquence 
employed to awaken their consciences, but they had seen 
their friends and kinsmen voluntarily and joyfully offer up 
their lives for what they believed to be the truth. So, 
though in the writings of this time there is more than a full 
share of levity and grossness, we can see through and under 
it all a deep and sincere religious feeling, such as England, 
as a nation, has never since possessed. 

Both Elizabeth and James took pride in patronizing let- 
ters, the former leaning rather in her taste to poetry, and 
the latter to scholarship; and both were more profuse in 
honors than in substantial gifts. Both greatly loved splen- 
did pageants and scenic display ; and the most eminent men 
of the time took part in preparing or performing dramatic 
and allegorical shows for the entertainment of the court. 
From this, in addition to the previous reasons, an impulse 
was given to dramatic poetry, which pre-eminently distin- 
guishes this as the age of the great dramatists. While 
other periods have equalled or excelled this in other fields of 
letters, in none has the drama reached such perfection, or 
employed men of such illustrious genius. 

It would be out of place in a work like the present to 
enter into any discussion of the origin of the drama. When 
we consider how easy and natural is the step from having 
the deeds of gods and heroes recited by one person (Epic 
Poetry) to having them repeated by persons representing 
those gods and heroes, we cannot be surprised that the 
drama has arisen spontaneously among peoples of the most 
diverse civilisation. But the drama of European nations 
has descended directly from that of the Greeks, with whom 
it reached, under very rigorous limitations, what we must 



ORIGIN OF POETRY. 87 

consider absolute poetical perfection — at least, the highest 
perfection of its kind that we can conceive. 

Whatever may be the preponderance of the influence 
which the drama has exerted upon morals, it was of religious 
institution. This is true of every nation in which it has 
originated. That poetry is older than prose is demonstrable 
from the principles of human nature. Not that poetry is 
the oldest spoken language, but that it is that in which the 
earliest literary attempts of all people emerging from bar- 
barism have appeared. In their first rude festivals, the 
objects of their celebration are the gods whom they worship, 
and the heroes, among themselves or their ancestors, who 
have become distinguished in war or in the chase. These 
celebrations were conducted in songs and dances, in which 
the bard was accustomed to lead, accompanied at intervals 
by the rest of the tribe. In the gradual progress of civilisa- 
tion, he was the leader, and, in general, the chief and the 
legislator for his people; and the laws w T ere chanted to them 
together w T ith the great deeds of their heroes. Thus we read 
of Orpheus and Musaeus, who, bards though they were, are 
traditionally reported to have been the first legislators of 
Greece, and the lyre was the instrument of their civilisation ; 
the precepts and the laws having been conveyed to the 
people in lyric verse. It was only in after ages that the 
legislative character became separated from the bard, and 
when enthusiasm became diminished by advancing knowl- 
edge, and the number and importance of laws had increased 
to such an extent as to render this separation necessary. 
When writing w T as first introduced, it was these songs of 
the gods, of heroes, and of the laws — the history of the 
nation — which were the first things to be recorded. "In 
these early times," says Plutarch, "so general was the incli- 
nation to rhythm and numbers, that all instruction was 
given in verse: there was neither history, nor philosophy, 



88 THE ELIZABETHAN PEBIOD. 

nor any action to be described, but what was dressed bv the 
Muses."' It was thus not only with the Greeks, but with the 
Arabs, the Peruvians, the Xorth American Indians, "and 
every other nation in a barbarous state. Even after the bard 
had lost his legislative character, he was yet. for a time, the 
second personage in the state, as an assistant of the magis- 
trate in civilising the manners of the people, and enforcing 
their obedience of the laws. In the midst of dangerous 
insurrections, he was often able, by his lyre and song, to 
allay their passions and avert the greatest disasters. t% Of 
this," says the author above quoted, "'we have a clear 
instance in the commonwealth of Sparta (which maintained 
all its original institutions the most pure and unchanged), 
where a dangerous insurrection arose; nor could be quelled 
by the magistrate till the bard Terpander came, and played 
and sung at their public place of congress." 

It would be an interesting and easy task, if it were con- 
sistent with the plan of this work, to trace the gradual 
development .of poetry from these rude beginnings, into the 
epic, the lyric, and into tragedy:* thence, as civilisation 

* The difference between these great divisions of poetry may be thus 
concisely explained : 

All poetry, properly so called, is founded upon cfnoriox. and is intended 
to produce corresponding emotion in the hearer or reader. But emotion 
may be expressed in three ways: iV< by song; ib- by speech: (>> by ac- 
tion : hence we have : a lyric ; i h \ epic or recitative: t'c. dramatic poetry. 

This is the division by form : that by idea is somewhat different. 
Emotion is produced by events. If we express the emotion and subordi- 
nate the events., we have the lyric idea : if we express the events and 
subordinate the emotion, we have the epic or narrative: and if both are 
shown in mutual reaction, we have the dramatic idea. 

The subdivisions then follow according to the character of the emo- 
tions, which may be religious, patriotic, erotic,, etc.: or of the events, 
which may be material or spiritual, etc. 

Again, the idea may belong to one division and the form to another. 
Thus, if the form is dramatic and the idea lyric, we have the Li 
L>-a-\a : if the form is lyric and the idea drama::.:, we have the 
Lyric ; if the form is lyric and the idea epic, we have the Ballad, etc. 



THE GREEK DRAMA. 89 

advanced, into comedy, satire, and other branches of the art. 
It is sufficient here to remark,* that in Greece, the first 
enlightened country of ancient times with whose history we 
are much acquainted, the part w r hich the bard acted in the 
religion of the state at the period of the rise of tragedy was 
still an important one ; and the first tragedies w r ere composed 
for the purpose of inculcating a reverence for the gods, and 
a submission to the unalterable decrees of fate. Their 
enactings were religious ceremonies; and the places chosen 
for this purpose were those which commanded views of the 
shrines of worship. These were in the open air. 

" When a storm or a shower came on, the play was of course inter- 
rupted, and the spectators sought shelter in the lofty colonnade w T hich 
ran behind their seats ; but they were willing rather to put up with 
such occasional inconveniences, than, by shutting themselves up in a 
close and crowded house, entirely forfeit the sunny brightness of a 
religious solemnity — for such, in fact, their plays were. To have cov- 
ered in the scene itself, and imprisoned gods and heroes in a dark and 
gloomy apartment, artificially lighted up, w T ould have appeared still 
more ridiculous in them. An action which so gloriously attested their 
affinity with heaven, could fitly be exhibited only beneath the free 
heaven, and, as it were, under the very eyes of the gods, for whom, 
according to Seneca, 4 the sight of a brave man struggling with adver- 
sity is a suitable spectacle.' "* 

Secondary to the principal object of inducing a reverence 
of the gods, was that of exciting in the heart tender and 
compassionate sentiments, by representations of the suffer- 
ings of eminent persons who have fallen from high into low 
estate.f 

Such was the origin of Greek tragedy. In Eome, also, 
whose poetry was nearly all an imitation of that of the 

* Schlegel's Dram. Lit. 53. 

f Tragedy is to tell a certain story 
As old bookis makin ofte memory 
Of hem that stode in grete prosperite 
And be fallen out of her high degree. 

Chaucer, Monk?* Tale. 



90 THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD, p 

Greeks, the people, before they learned to imitate the great 
works of their masters, went to the gymnasium and the 
circus, in the midst of pestilences, in the hope of appeasing 
the wrath of the gods. Very soon after the establishment of 
Christianity, Christian scholars began, in imitation of the 
Greeks, to compose tragedies on sacred subjects, and some of 
the most eminent and pious prelates found pleasure in this 
composition. In the fourth century, Bishop Gregory Xazian- 
zen, though he banished Grecian plays from the stage of 
Constantinople, supplied their places with others composed 
upon incidents taken from the Scriptures. There is extant 
one of his own composition, entitled Chrisfs Passion, in 
imitation of Euripides, in which, following the religious 
direction of Greek tragedy, Christian hymns were made to 
supply the place of the chorus. 

During the greater part of the Middle Ages, the drama 
had no existence in the western nations of Europe. But 
when, after the lapse of centuries, a more intimate acquaint- 
ance was established between them and the East, among the 
things which* the Western pilgrims brought back with them, 
on their return from the holy places which they had gone to 
visit, was the sacred drama. The English ecclesiastics were 
the first to produce sacred plays of their own composition. 
An account has been made, in the history of the Council of 
Constance, of their having, in the intervals of the sittings, 
acted a spiritual play in Latin. For a long period, these com- 
positions were written only in Latin; but afterwards, and for 
the purpose of withdrawing the people from the exhibitions 
which jugglers and other such persons were in the habit of 
making at the great fairs of the merchants, these plays began 
to be composed in the vernacular tongues. They were called 
Miracles, and sometimes Mysteries ; and represented inci- 
dents in the lives of our Saviour, and of the various apostles 
and saints. As these were written, so were they performed, 



MYSTERIES AND MORALITIES. 91 

solely by the ecclesiastics, and before churches and monas- 
teries. By way of enlivening these pious representations, so 
as to make them compete for popular attendance with the 
shows of the jugglers, the Devil was made to perform a part, 
in which his frequent discomfitures and consequent roarings 
were the occasion of infinite amusement to the audience. 
The earliest work of this kind in English is one called Tlie 
Harrowing of Hell, produced about the middle of the four- 
teenth century. It represents our Saviour as descending into 
hell, and delivering from the power of Satan, Adam and 
other characters of the Old and the New Testament. This 
gave rise to several poems, one of which commences thus : 

Alle herknetk to me now 
A strif wolle y tellen ou 
Of Jhesu ant of Sathan 
Hu Jhesu wes to lielle ygan. 

It was thus that our Sacred Comedy began, in which all 
those scenic arts which a rude age could invent were employed 
for the purpose of adding to its interest with the populace. 
In the literal interpretation of the texts of Scripture, which 
the monks felt themselves always bound to observe, these 
Mysteries sometimes represented the grossest indecencies. 
They at last grew to be so objectionable that, in the reign of 
Henry VIIL, Bishop Bonner issued a proclamation prohibit- 
ing them from being played within the churches. 

In process of time, the Mysteries gave place to others 
called Moralities, in which, in imitation of the allegories of 
the French, allegorical representations were made of abstract 
qualities. In these, the part formerly played by the Devil 
was performed by a character called the Vice. In some of 
them both the Devil and the Vice made their appearance, and 
entertained the spectators with many a trick upon each other. 
The earliest of these, in English, of which the author is known, 
is one of the poet Skelton, in the beginning of the sixteenth 



92 THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 

century. It is called Magnificence; the substance of which 
is, that 

11 Magnificence becomes a dupe to his servants and favorites, Fansy, 
Counterfet Countenance, Crafty Conveyance, Clokyd Collision, Courtly 
Abusion, and Foly. At length he is seized and robbed by Adversyte, 
by wlioni he is given up as a prisoner to Poverte. He is next delivered 
to Despare and Mischefe, who offer him a knife and a halter. He 
snatches the knife to end his miseries by stabbing himself; when 
Good Hope and Redresse appear, and persuade him to take the m- 
barbe of repentance, with some gostly gummes, and a few drammes 
of devocyon. He becomes acquainted with Circumspecyon and Per- 
severance, follows their directions, and seeks for happiness in a state 
of penitence and contrition." 

This poet had been formerly the rector inXorwich; but 
his buffooneries in the pulpit, and his satires upon the men- 
dicant friars and the higher clergy, together with the 
charges of conduct unbecoming a preacher, lost him his 
place. 

From the monasteries, these religious plays gradually found 
their way to the universities 4 ' and to the inns of court. 
They took the name of Interludes, from their being acted 
in the intervals of those gorgeous pageants in which the 
Tudor sovereigns were accustomed to indulge. While these 
Moralities and Interludes were assuming more and more of 
the character of representations of every-day life, the schol- 
ars began to write plays in imitation of Latin comedies, com- 
posing them in the Latin language. From these two sources, 
the Miracles and the classical plays, has sprung the modern 
English drama. 

Nicholas Udal, master of Eton school, has the honor 
of having written the first English comedy. It was entitled 

* Hamlet. My lord, you played once in the university, you say? 
Polonius. That did I, my lord, and was counted a good actor. 
Hamlet. And what did you enact? 
Polonius. I did enact Julius Caesar; I was killed i* the Capitol; 

Brutus killed me. 



UmTIES OF THE GREEK DRAMA. 93 

Ralph Royster Doyster, and is a lively picture of the man- 
ners of the age. This was produced in the year 1540, About 
twenty years afterward appeared our first tragedy, the joint 
production of Thomas Norton and Lord Buckhukst, be- 
fore referred to as the originator of The Mirrour for 
Magistrates. It is entitled Gorhoduc, the name of one of 
the fabulous kings of Britain, and is founded upon the bloody 
quarrels of Ferrex and Porrex, his two sons. 

The ancient drama was distinguished for the observation 
of the unities of time, place, and action. One set of charac- 
ters, one occasion of their great actions, and one place, were 
usually selected for representation. These unities must have 
been observed if for no other reason than because of the 
continual presence of the chorus. Whatever may have been 
the origin of the chorus, whether, as some have supposed, 
it was the representation of the audience, or, according to 
others, an accompanying exposition of the sentiments of the 
author, as it was ever present during the representation, 
and could not, without violence to dramatic illusion, be 
transferred along with the changes of time and place, the 
representation was necessarily limited to one place, and to 
the time which the actions might have occupied. On these 
tragedies were founded the rules of Unity established by 
Aristotle. At the origin of the modern drama, there imme- 
diately arose a contest between those who thought that 
the classical rules were applicable to all periods of litera- 
ture and society, and should be followed in the new drama, 
and those who, in obedience to the demands of romantic lit- 
erature, thought it necessary to violate those rules. The 
serious, and even the religious character of the Greek drama, 
did not admit of that variety of action and sentiment which 
really occurs in life. The Eomantic professed to show man- 
kind in all its moods and from every point of view. In the 
words of Schlegel : " The former is more simple, clear, and 



94 THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 

like to nature in the self-existent perfection of her separate 
works ; the latter, notwithstanding its fragmentary appear- 
ance, approaches more to the secret of the universe." 

The tragedy of Gorboduc was composed in an attempted 
imitation of the classic dramas. But though it had the chorus, 
and endeavored, but not always successfully, to preserve the 
unity of time, it violated that of place ; and in all respects 
shows how poorly the poets of Greece were understood by 
the author, and how unreasonable it was to apply their rules 
of dramatic action to modern times and peoples. This at- 
tempt of Lord Buckhurst at re-establishing a classic drama 
was followed by several other poets whose names are not 
worthy to be remembered. It served, however, to promote 
the study and encourage translations of classical works. 
A few minor poets ventured to strike out into the field of 
romance; when even Sir Philip Sidney, in his contempt for 
their writings, lamented that the unities of Sophocles were 
neglected. 

Players, before the middle of the sixteenth century, were 
usually under the patronage of some men of rank, whose 
servants they were called. In 1546, when the theatre had 
become of importance, an office was created into which was 
installed an officer, called the Master of the Eevels, whose 
business was the regulation of all the shows of the court. 
Under his nominal protection the theatres soon passed ; and 
actors, in memory of their ancient name, began to be called, 
as they are down to this time, the servants of the king. 

The first and the only dramatic poet of considerable 
ability before Shakespeare was Christopher Marlowe, who 
may be styled the father of the British drama. His Jew of 
Malta is a tragedy of extraordinary power, though over- 
crowded with horrors. The character of Barabas is drawn 
with ability, and furnished to Shakespeare some hints for 
that of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. Next to this 



MARLOWE. 95 

his Faustus and his Edivard II are his greatest works. 
Had Marlowe's life been prolonged, he would have acquired 
a reputation second to that of but few dramatic writers of 
any country. But he was loose in his principles as well as 
his life, and fond of low society. He was killed in a brawl 
at a tavern in Deptford by a wound from his own knife, 
which was turned against him by his adversary in the scuffle. 
He was only thirty years old when he died, in 1593. 

Of the tragic power of Marlowe, no better example can 
be given than the catastrophe of Faustus. Faustus has 
bartered his soul with the powers of hell for a life of unhal- 
lowed power and pleasure, and the time has now arrived 
when his woful bond is forfeit. His friends, and finally his 
good angel, have forsaken him, and left him alone in his 

terrors. 

{The clock strikes eleven) 

Faust. Oh Faustus ! 

Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, 
And then thou must be damned perpetually. 
Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, 
That time may cease and midnight never come ! 
Fair nature's eye, rise, rise again, and make 
Perpetual day ; or let this hour be but 
A year, a month, a week, a natural day, 
That Faustus may repent and save his soul! 
The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, 
The devil will come, and Faustus must be damned ! 
Oh, I'll leap up to heaven ! — Who pulls me clown? 
See where Christ's blood streams in the firmament ! 
One drop of blood will save me ! Oh my Christ ! 

Rend not my heart for naming of my Christ ! 

Yet will I call on him. 

Oh, spare me, Lucifer ! — 
Where is it now? — 'tis gone ! 
And see ! a threatening arm, an angry brow ! — 
Mountains and hills, come, come, and fall on me, 
And hide me from the heavy wrath of heaven ! 
No ? Then will I headlong run into the earth — 
Gape, earth ! — Oh no, it will not harbour me ! 



96 THE ELIZABETHAN PERIOD. 

[The clock strikes.) 
Oh, half the hour is past ■ 'twill all be past anoni 
Oh, if my soul must suffer for my sin, 
Iaipose some end to my incessant pain. 
Let Faustus live in hell a thousand years, 
A hundred thousand, and at last be saved ! 

[The clock strikes ticelve. Enter the fiends.) 



OTHER AUTHORS. 

"William Warner Poetry 1584 

Sir John Harington Translations .1590 

George Chapman. Dramas and Translations 1590 

Samuel Daniel, History and Poetry 1595 

Michael Drayton Poetry 1596 



CHAPTER XL 

Shakspeare : the little that is known of his Life ; his Sonnets ; his 
Marriage and Removal to London, and becoming Actor ; Venus and 
Adonis, and Lucrece ; his Alterations of old Plays ; his Dramas. 

By far the greatest name in the history of the English 
drama, and the greatest in that of the poetry of all ages, is 
William Shakspeare. He was born at Stratford-upon- 
Avon, on the 23d of April, 1564, the son of a dealer in wool. 
Immeasurably greater as he was than all the literary men of 
the reign of Elizabeth, it is remarkable how little we know 
of his life. We have no anecdotes of his conversation ; not 
even any letters of his writing. We have no knowledge 
of how and where he was educated; and, while some have 
contended that he was a man of great learning, others, and 
they are not less his ardent admirers, have maintained that 
his was an uncultivated and even a barbarous genius, which 
nature miraculously and capriciously produced. There is 
now, however, no doubt that he must at least have attended 
the grammar-school in his native town. Whatever may 
have been the enjoyments and the sufferings, the hopes and 
the fears of his boyhood, they are, among other things like 
them in the past, buried with him who felt them. There 
have been many speculations as to what were the occasions 
for his Sonnets, which, in language the most pathetic, seem 
to relate to some mysterious source of grief, as a great wrong 
sustained and endured. They were published in the year 
1609, and dedicated to Mr. W. EL, who is quaintly styled the 
"begetter" of them. The mystery which pervades them, 

5 



98 SHAKSPEARE. 

and which accompanied their publication, have induced 
some eminent critics; among them Coleridge, to suppose 
that this dedication was a blind, and that the Sonnets were 
addressed to a woman with whom he was deeply in love. 
But these initials are now generally agreed to refer to Wil- 
liam Herbert, Earl of Pembroke. Of what there was in the 
relations of the two, to call forth the Sonnets, the world is 
entirely ignorant. But they show that the heart of the poet, 
poor, and humble, and untaught as he may have been, had, 
in early youth, been stirred to its greatest depth of feeling ; 
that he had sustained a wrong which some reason rendered 
it impossible for him to resent, and which he could, there- 
fore, only deplore.* 

At the age of eighteen he was married to Anne Hatha- 
way, who was seven years older than himself. Of the three 
children who were born to him there are now no descend- 
ants. In 1586, when he was only twenty-two years old, he 
went to London, and took the profession of an actor, and, from 
what has been learned of the parts which he enacted after- 
ward in his own plays, it seems that his favorite characters 
were those of old men. Thoroughly understanding the 
scenic requirements of a play, or what it needed to make it 
effective upon the stage, his career as a dramatist began with 
the work of remodelling those meagre pieces, which were then 
the best that the stage afforded. It is probable that this work 
was undertaken with a view less to his literary reputation than 
to his pecuniary advantage ; for, within three years after his 

* M. Philarete Chasles, an eminent French critic, offers the following 
explanation of the mystery of the Sonnets : Shakspeare was infatuated 
with love for some woman of great beauty, but utterly unworthy. He 
had also a bosom-friend, whom he calls his " better angel," who endeav- 
ored to wean him from this unhappy passion. The woman, in revenge, 
succeeds in making his friend his rival. All the steps of this intrigue 
Shakspeare sees, but is so enslaved by his passion that he can neither 
prevent it nor free himself from his degrading thraldom. 



SOURCES OF HIS PLOTS. 99 

removal to London, he had become a part-owner of the 
Blackfriars Theatre, and, not very long afterward, the owner, 
jointly with Burbadge, of the whole. It was here that 
commenced the friendship of the poet and this renowned 
actor — a friendship which has been happily called " a golden 
bond/' in which the genius of each displayed and illustrated 
that of the other. As the proprietor, therefore, of a theatre, 
well knowing the wants of the public, he was accustomed to 
take the fullest liberties w T ith the pieces which were brought 
upon his stage. Afterward, as his fame began to rise, w r hen 
these pieces, thus remodelled, were enumerated among his 
own productions, this circumstance gave occasion to charges 
of plagiarism from his contemporary dramatists. 

In the midst of these employments, and before he had 
produced any original play, he published, in 1593, his Venus 
and Adonis, and the next year Lucrece, both of which were 
dedicated to the Earl of Southampton, his patron. The 
Venus and Adonis, written in the style of Ovid, was called 
by him in his dedication, " the first heir of my invention." 
It obtained him a liberal present from the earl, and the 
two pieces acquired, at once, a high reputation for their 
author. 

However and wherever educated, the mind of Shakspeare 
became filled with an abundance of very varied knowledge. 
We have seen how numerous were the translations of the 
Greek and Eoman authors in the former years of the queen's 
reign. These translations were the classics to him and his 
contemporaries; and through them they became acquainted 
with the habits and sentiments of the ancients. With the 
native literature of England he was doubtless familiar; and 
he had especially studied the Italian novels. When the ease 
and success with which he had remodelled the works of others 
suggested to him that he might produce plays of his own, 
not always having time to invent his own plot, with the 



100 SBAKSPEAPE. 

practical shrewdness of a man who had other things to do 
beside getting a reputation, he borrowed many of his plots 
from K these bookes made in Italic and translated in Eng- 
land. 7 ' Thus the originals of Borneo and Juliet. Measure for 
Measure , Cymbeliiie, and many others, are to be found among 
the Hundred Tales of Cinthio. 

The genius of Shakspeare appeared pre-eminently above 
that of other men in this, that he was bound by the rules 
of none of the schools. We have seen how Spenser's devo- 
tion was for chivalry. That of Shakspeare was for every 
region in which the mind of man was ever able to travel. 
He went throughout all nature in search of beauty and 
truth ; and while he found them in greater abundance than 
other men, he was able to exhibit them in a light in which 
they had never been seen before. He was essentially the 
poet of nature. He studied and admired all her laws alike, 
the simplest and the most mysterious. 

What all agree to have been his greatest talent was char- 
acterization. It is wonderful, among the great number and 
variety of th*e characters which he has drawn, to behold 
those distinct discriminations which we can find in the 
works of no other poet. And these discriminations are 
found as well among the humble as among the great. 
Kings, courtiers, warriors, gentlemen, yeomen, clowns, ser- 
vants, even lunatics, as they have their separate identity in 
actual life, have that identity in the creations of Shakspeare ; 
for he had studied them all alike. Wherever there was a 
human being to grieve or rejoice, he saw in him the image 
of God. fathomed the inmost depths of his sorrow or his 
gladness, and expressed it in such language as his education, 
much or little as it was, had taught him to use. He had the 
faculty to transform himself into every personage which he 
portrayed ; to think his thoughts and be swayed by his pas- 
sions ; and thus it was impossible for him to err in his de- 



POWER OF CHARACTERIZATION. 101 

lineation. He was Valentine and Proteus. He was Lear, 
Othello, Hamlet; and then lie was Adam, Mercutio, Bene- 
dick. Even in the little time in which he personated 
Launce, he felt all the simple fondness for the dog, which 
was the only being to which he could feel himself superior, 
and which depended upon him. "Never, perhaps, was 
there so comprehensive a talent for characterization as 
Shakspeare's. It not only grasps every diversity of rank, 
age, and sex, down to the lispings of infancy ; not only do 
the king and the beggar, the hero and the pickpocket, 
the sage and the idiot, speak and act with equal truth- 
fulness; not only does he transport himself to distant ages 
and foreign nations, and portray, with the greatest accuracy 
(a few apparent violations of costume excepted) the spirit 
of the ancient Eomans, of the French in the wars with 
the English, of the English themselves during a great part 
of their history, of the southern Europeans (in the serious 
part of many comedies), the cultivated society of the day, 
and the rude barbarism of a Norman fore-time ; his human 
characters have not only such depth and individuality that 
they do not admit of being classed under common names, 
and are inexhaustible even in conception ; no, this Prome- 
theus not merely forms men ; he opens the gates of the 
magical world of spirits, calls up the midnight ghost, exhib- 
its before us the witches with their unhallowed rites, peoples 
the air with sportive fairies and sylphs ; and these beings, 
though existing only in the imagination, nevertheless pos- 
sess such truth and consistency, that even with such mis- 
shapen abortions as Caliban, he extorts the assenting convic- 
tion that were there such beings, they would so conduct 
themselves. In a word, as he carries a bold and pregnant 
fancy into the kingdom of nature, on the other hand, he 
carries nature into the regions of fancy which lie beyond the 
confines of reality. We are lost in astonishment at the 



102 SHAESPEARE. 

close intimacy he brings us into with the extraordinary, the 
wonderful, and the marvellous." * 

While, as a tragic poet, Shakspeare stands unquestionably 
the highest of all, his power of comic characterization has 
seldom, if ever, been surpassed. There may be some dram- 
atists who have produced single characters in comedy 
which are superior to any one of his. Yet, in the general 
invention of characters of all kinds, there has never been 
even an approximation to him in the history of the drama. 
" He has all the smiles as well as tears of nature, and discerns 
the ' soul of goodness in things evil/ He is comedy as well 
as tragedy — the entire man in all his qualities, moods, and 
experiences; and he beautifies all."f His characters are 
such, as, when we have known them, we can, with difficulty, 
dissuade ourselves from the belief that they were men and 
women, in the actual exercise of the sentiments and passions 
of humanity. Falstaff, Othello, Malvolio, Jessica, Portia, 
Julia : they have become historic characters — as much so as 
any in the actual past. 

That there -should be in the works of Shakspeare many 
scenes which cannot with propriety be represented before a 
refined assemblage of the present day, is natural, when we 
consider how rough were the manners and how free the 
speech of the people in the times when they were written. 
Not until long after those times had woman attained to the 

* Schlegel, 63. 

f Hunt's Italian Poets. " Compare with him Homer, the tragedians 
of Greece, the poets of Italy, Plautus, Cervantes, Moliere, Addison, Le 
Sage, Fielding, Richardson, Scott, the romancers of the elder or later 
schools — one man has far more than surpassed them all. Others may 
have been as sublime, others may have been more pathetic, others may 
have equalled him in grace and purity of language, and have shunned 
some of his faults ; but the philosophy of Shakspeare, his intimate 
searching out of the human heart, whether in the gnomic form of sen- 
tence or in the dramatic exhibition of character, is a gift peculiarly his 
own." (Hall., ii. 203.) 



INDIFFERENCE TO HIS OWN FAME. 103 

position which she now so justly occupies : a position midway 
between the abject servitude of barbarism and the extrava- 
gant flatteries of the chivalrous ages. It must be remem- 
bered, besides, that no woman then appeared upon the 
stage, female parts being always acted by boys. Shakes- 
peare himself felt keenly the odium which was cast upon 
his profession, and laments it in one of his Sonnets. He 
complains of Fortune — 

The guilty goddess of my harmful deeds, 

That did not better for my life provide 

Than public means which public manners breeds ; 

Thence comes it that my name receives a brand; 

And almost thence my nature is subdued 

To what it works in, like the dyer's hand. 

It is impossible to assign to each of the plays the date of 
its first production. But in a general comparison of the 
comedies with the tragedies in this respect, the former are 
anterior, the most of them belonging to the sixteenth cen- 
tury ; while only one tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, it is sup- 
posed, was produced before the year 1600. The singular 
indifference of the poet to his own fame is to be deeply 
regretted ; because it is that which has been the cause of so 
much uncertainty in regard to him. The composure with 
which he listened to the charges of plagiarism by his con- 
temporary dramatists, Greene, Lodge, Peel, and others, 
would never allow an answer of any sort; he made what use 
he pleased of their writings for his own theatre ; and 
seemed, at the same time, as indifferent to the credit of 
the authorship of. his own great inventions, as he was to the 
charge of borrowing from others. And while no one doubts 
his exclusive authorship of his chief works, there is much un- 
certainty in regard to others of less value, some of which are 
now published with his works, and others not. Thus Titus 
Andronicus is now almost universally admitted not to have 



104 SHAKSPEARE. * 

been -written by him. The same is believed in regard to the 
greater part of Pericles, Prince of Tyre; while Arden of 
Feversliam and the Yorkshire Tragedy are considered by 
many to be his compositions. 

In his own time he was esteemed the greatest dramatist 
of his day. After his death his reputation declined, owing 
to the general fondness of the critics, the disciples of the 
Academy della Crusca of Italy, and the renowned Castelve- 
tro, for the unities of the Greek drama. It was not until 
the reign of George II., when Garrick appeared, that Shaks- 
peare at last rose to that eminence which he now so justly 
occupies. 

In Shakspeare's time the theatre was of the rudest con- 
struction. The pit was open to the sky (plays, as in ancient 
times, being enacted only in the day), and the only appoint- 
ments besides the stage were a balcony from behind, which 
served every possible, and sometimes an impossible, purpose, 
and a hanging of wrought tapestry. The changing of the 
scenes was notified to the spectators by placards, as of 
"Verona/ "The Forest/' etc., suspended in view. These 
meagre decorations, so hurtful to the illusion of the theatre, 
were doubtless greatly favorable to the genius of Shakes- 
peare; as their poverty had to be compensated by the greater 
expenditure of the riches of his imagination. And it is not 
improbable that the introduction of scenery has exerted a 
deleterious influence upon dramatic poetry. 

On the question of which of the plays of Shakspeare is 
the greatest, there is a difference of opinion. But that dif- 
ference is confined to Hamlet, Macbeth, Lear, and Othello ; 
the greater number, probably, preferring the first. No clew 
has ever been found to what was the author's opinion of any 
one of them. He wrote them, as it would seem, for but 
one end, and that was the obtaining of means sufficient to 
gratify a desire, always fondly entertained, of retiring upon 



RETIREMENT AMD DEATH. 105 

a property in his native place. He was able at last to gratify 
this desire by purchasing, from the avails of his theatre, 
Xew Place at Stratford. There is something peculiarly 
touching in the retirement of this great man from a public 
career, in which he had acquired a great and a rapidly in- 
creasing fame, to the perfect quiet of domestic life; and this, 
too, before his intellectual faculties had suffered any decay. 
At this time he was only forty-seven years old; having but 
lately finished his Othello, which is generally believed to be 
his latest production. But his choice was that of a wise 
man, and it was wisely made; for he spent the few years left 
for him to live in the quiet contentment which he did not 
have in London, and which was the only thing he desired. 
He died in 1616. 

To give any just idea of Shakspeare's genius by extracts 
from his plays, would be an impossible task. The scenes 
are so linked together that one cannot be adequately appre- 
ciated without a knowledge of what has gone before; and 
the life, the action, and passion in his greatest works rush on 
with such a fierce energy, that to judge them by an ^tract 
would be as futile an attempt as to endeavor to form a con- 
ception of a rushing torrent by a bucket of water drawn 
from its flood. Hence, referring our readers to the works 
themselves, for specimens of his dramatic power, we confine 
our extracts to his Sonnets, poems which deserve more study 
than is usually given them, as in them alone do we catch 
any glimpse of Shakspeare himself. 

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 

I summon up remembrance of things past, 
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 

And with old woes new wailed my dear time's waste : 
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow, 

For precious friends hid in Death's dateless night, 
And weep afresh love's long-since cancelled woe, 

And moan the expense of many a vanished sight 
5* 



106 SHAKSPEARE. 

Then can I grieve at grievances fore-gone, 
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er 

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, 
Which I now pay as if not paid before. 

But if the while I tbink on thee, dear friend, 

All losses are restored and sorrows end. 



Let me not to the marriage of true minds 

Admit impediments. Love is not love 
Which alters when it alteration finds, 

Or bends with the remover to remove : 

no : it is an ever-fixed mark 

That looks on tempests and is never shaken ; 
It is the star to every wandering bark, 

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. 
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 

Within his bending sickle's compass come ; 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks. 

But bears it out even to the edge of doom. 
If this be error, and upon me proved, 

1 never writ, nor no man ever loved. 



Then hate me when thou wilt ; if ever, now ; 

Now, while the world is bent my deeds to cross, 
Join with4he spite of fortune, make me bow, 

And do not drop in for an after-loss : 
Ah ! do not, when my heart hath 'scaped this sorrow, 

Come in the rearward of a conquered woe ; 
Give not a windy night a rainy morrow, 

To linger out a purposed overthrow. 
If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last, 

When other petty griefs have spent their spite, 
But in the onset come, so shall I taste 

At first the very worst of fortune's might ; 
And other strains of woe, which now seem woe, 
Compared with loss of thee will not seem so. 



I 



CHAPTER XII. 

Ben Jonson — Beaumont and Fletcher — Massinger — Other Dramatists. 

The greatest of the contemporary dramatists of Shaks- 
peare was Benjamin, always called Beist Joxsoisr. He was 
a native of Westminster, where he was born in the year 
1573. He was a posthumous Ghild, his father having died one 
month before he was born. There was once a story that, his 
mother having afterward married a bricklayer, the latter 
wished to bring him up to his own trade, and compelled 
him, when very young, to help him in his work; but that 
Ben, not relishing the business, ran away, and, by various 
shifts, succeeded in obtaining a subsistence and an education. 
Later inquiries into his history have rendered this story a 
matter of doubt. He went to school in Westminster, and 
was for some time at the University of Cambridge. Poverty, 
however, interrupted his studies, and threw him upon his 
own resources. Casting about for the best means of earning 
a livelihood, he entered the army as a common soldier, and 
went through a campaign in the Low Countries, where he 
*vas distinguished for uncommon bravery. But war was 
found to be as little suited to his tastes as the laying of 
^rick; and when the campaign closed, he abandoned the 
trmy. The vast amount of learning which he was after- 
ward known to possess has given grounds for the belief tnat 
he must have spent several years after his return from the 
Low Countries at the university. When he had attained his 
majoiity, he went to London, and, like Shakspeare, com- 



108 ELIZABETHAN DBAMATISTS. 

menced his public career by becoming an actor. Like 
Shakespeare, also, he was in the habit of exercising that 
liberty of an actor, the remodelling the plays in which he 
was to take a part; and thus became, what he probably did 
not at first think of becoming, a dramatic author. But this 
latter destiny came to Jonson the earlier and the more 
happily, because, as a poor actor, he was likely to perish. 
He seemed to have been born to ill luck. Having killed a 
brother actor in an unfortunate duel, for which he had to 
suffer a year's imprisonment, he added to these misfortunes 
that of having to maintain a wife, while miserably poor, and 3 
as an actor, hopeless not only of fame, but of the means of 
living. Stimulated by his necessities, and encouraged by 
praises of the judgment displayed in his alterations of other 
works, he appeared suddenly as an author. When only 
twenty-two years of age, he produced his first comedy, illus- 
trative of contemporary life and manners, Every Man in his 
Humour. This curious title was adopted with reference to 
what had been, for some time before the play was written, a 
prevalent notion ; that moral acts were, for the most part, 
dependent upon physical qualities. The notion was derived 
from a work called Examen de Ingenios, by Huarte, a Span- 
iard, which was translated into English, and entitled The 
Examination of Men's Wits. The doctrine taught in this 
book was, that the difference in men's wits depended upon 
the comparative prevalence of the "hot, the moist, the cold, 
or the dry" in the temperament. It therefore became 
habitual with the credulous to examine, each one as best he 
could, the state of these elements in his own body, for the 
purpose of finding what was his own special "humoar." 
This was thought a useful study, not only for enabling a 
man to choose the profession which was most suitable to his 
nature, but that he might plead an excuse for any infirmity, 
either in his character or his habits. For such infirmities 



JONSON' S LEARNING. 109 

might, indeed, claim to be exempt from very condign pun- 
ishment, if those who were in a condition to judge them 
could be brought to admit that they were referable solely to 
the degrees of the hot, the moist, and the dry which were in 
the offenders when they came into the world, and for which 
they were no more responsible than for the colors of their 
hair or the shapes of their noses. This curious notion 
became a fruitful theme for comic satire. 

Whether or not it be true that this play found an earlier 
favor with the public through the patronage and by the 
introduction of Shakespeare, it at once ranked its author 
among the best wits of the day ; and it was followed in quick 
succession by Every Man out of his Humour, Cynthia 9 s 
Revels, The Poetaster, Sejanus, Volpone, The Silent Woman, 
The Alchymist, Catiline, and many other w T orks of less 
importance. 

Jonson, in classical learning, was not only superior to 
Shakspeare, but to all the poets of his time. We have seen 
how Shakspeare refused to be governed by the rules of 
either school, but how this very refusal made him more a 
disciple of the Eomantic than of the Classical. Jonson fell 
into the mistake, common to classical scholars, of being 
never able to see anything in modern works worthy to be 
compared with the works of the ancients. His fondness for 
the Greek and Eoman classics, which mostly employed his 
studies, made him desirous of restoring the ancient drama. 
Sejanus and Catiline are tragedies which, though containing 
many fine passages, have all the stiffness and artificial 
arrangement w T hich are common to imitations, and closely 
follow the accounts of Sallust and Tacitus. They were not 
well received; and, notwithstanding his sense of the injustice 
which he thought had been done them, and which he attrib- 
uted to the malice of his enemies, Jonson was yet ready to 
admit their inferiority to those which he attempted to 



110 ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS 

imitate. In his address to the readers, prefaced to Sejanus, 
he says I: it be objected that what I publish is no true 
poeni in the strict laws of time, I confess it : u also in the 
tv ant of a proper chorus; whose habits and moods are such 
and so difficult, as not any, whom I have seen, since the 
ancients, no, not they who have m st : resently affected laws, 
have yet come in the way of. Nbi is it needful, or almost 
possible in these our times, and to such auditors as com- 
monly things are presented, to observe the old state and 
splendor of dramatic poems, with ir-rrvation of any 
popular delight." Xor does it seem that he found it u almost 
possible" to observe the unities of ancient tragedy; inas- 
much as they are violated in both of his own. But his infe- 
riority to Shakspeare is seen in the total absence of the 
pathetic which abounded in the latter, and which is so 
essential to the tragic drama. Throughout the historical 
plays of Shakspeare we see that ::ns:.vi: stream of pathos 
which is found in his other tragedies. With _: atly superior 
knowledge of history, Jonson was never able to learn from 
his rival K the art of being true to history, and yet satisfying 
the demands of poetry. In Jonson's hands the subject 
continues history without becoming poetry.* 3 * 

X •: t withstanding his high estimate of his tragedies com- 
pared with those of Shakspeare, as he was equally depend- 
ent upon the 

■ Public means which public manners breeds " 

he abandoned those efforts which the public persistently 
refused to encourage, and betook himself to comedy. His 
merit in this, his proper sphere, will be the more apparent 
when we remember that he was his :: pioneer in this de- 
partment of literature, unaided by the labors of any other 

* ScMegel, 4S2. 



JONSON'S TREATMENT OF CHARACTER. Ill 

in any of the modern nations. It is true that he had learned 
the principles of comedy from the Eoman comic writers, 
Plautus and Terence; but the difficulty of applying those 
principles to the illustration of contemporary life and man- 
ners was first met and removed by him. Shakspeare's come- 
dies, founded, as we have seen, for the most part, upon the 
Italian novels, illustrated the manners of the times in which 
the latter were written. It was reserved for Jonson to be the 
first to bring upon the stage with entire success those of his 
own times, and to apply to them the principles of wit and 
ridicule which those comic writers, and more especially 
the Eoman satirists, employed in theirs. 

Of the comedies of Jonson, Every Man in his Humour, The 
Fox, and The Alchymist, are considered the best. To the 
faithfulness of his portraitures, evidence is given in the general 
belief of his time that his principal characters were drawn 
from real persons. Their defect is, that by his system of 
seizing characteristic traits and exaggerating these, so as to 
produce the most vivid impression possible, the characters 
all tend to become caricatures. In the same way his deline- 
ations of superficial manners, phrases, and "humours" of the 
time, which necessarily soon became obsolete, to the neglect 
of the human nature w 7 hich underlies all these and endures 
through all time, which was Shakspeare's study, have done 
much to lessen his position in the estimation of posterity ; 
w T hile his high sense of honor and virtue, which readily 
flamed into indignation with meanness and vice, continually 
led him away from comedy, which laughs, to satire, which 
scourges. 

In his comedies as well as his tragedies there is perhaps too 
much parade, even for that scholarly age, of the learning on 
which he justly prided himself. He was most careful and 
correct in composition, never allowing hasty, unfinished work 
to go to the public, and sharply censuring the negligence of 



112 ELIZABETHAN DEA31ATISTS. 

other?, "With hi? great learning and disciplined judgment, 
frit himself qualified ::- be a teaeher : : his ge " a. and 

administered many wholesome instrr.ttitn^ 
to the faults of contemporary writers as well as those of the 
public. 

Besides dramas, comedies, and lyrics. Jonson composed a 
number of masques. These were entertainments of a very 
magnificent kind, partaking both of the drama anb the ballet, 
which were usually exhibited at court festivities. Some 
fable or allegory was selected as the ground-work, and treated 
in a highly imaginative way. so as to give the greatest possi- 
ble opportunity for splendid display. The principal parts 
were taken by nobles and ladies of high, sometimes of royal, 
rank, who vied with each other in the richness of their cos- 
tumes and brilliancy of their jewels: while the subordinate 
parts were performed by attendants and professional actors 
and sing-rs. Music, both vocal and instrumental, acting. 
and dancing, all in the highest attainable perfection, were 
skillfully combined,, and the most eminent artists were em- 
ployed to design the scenery and arrange the effects. Though 
the public stage was but poorly furnished at the time, in these 
masques machinery for stage-effects was employed, which 
seems, from the descriptions of contemporaries, to have been at 
least equal to any now in use. The modern ballet, at its 
best, can give but a poor idea of the gorgeousness of these 
spectacles, where, as Bacon says, "'princes were the actors. v 
and where all that the kingdom could afford of beauty, taste, 
skill, or magnificence,, was taxed to adorn the pageant. 

TThat was called an o.r>Ain\ " squt was frequently introduced 
into the principal masque by way of contrast, and to give 
an interval of rest to the chief performers. This was a sort 
of grotesque parody or foil to the main masque, and was 
probably played by professional actors. In this the wildest 
license of imagination was allowed : wi:ches. sprites, goblins. 



JONSON'S HIGH MOBALITY. 113 

buffoons, pygmies, animals, and inanimate things were the 
personages, and words and action were all constructed to 
heighten the fanciful extravagance. 

It is Jonson's highest praise that he never degraded his 
genius to win mere temporary popularity : in morals, as in 
art, his aim was always high, and his poetry is everywhere 
rilled with the praises and exhortations to the practice of 
virtue, nobleness, and honor. 

His songs and other lyric pieces are very numerous, and 
inferior to none in grace and sweetness. Some have remained 
popular even to the present time ; for example, the charm- 
ing verses entitled — 

To Celia. 

Drink to me only with thine eyes, 

And I will pledge with mine ; 
Or leave a kiss but in the cup, 

And I'll not look for wine. 
The thirst that from the soul doth rise, 

Doth ask a drink divine : 
But might I of Jove's nectar sup, 

I would not change for thine. 

I sent thee late a rosy wreath, 

Not so much honoring thee, 
As giving it a hope that there 

It would not withered be. 
But thou thereon didst only breathe, 

And seud it back to me ; 
Since when it grows, and smells, I swear, 

Not of itself, but thee. 

The first literary club was started by Sir Walter Raleigh. 
Its meetings were held at the Mermaid Tavern. At this 
club and that of the Apollo were wont frequently to gather 
the wits of town. Jonson had his moods of taciturnity 
and loquacity. He would often take no part in the conver- 
sation, but quietly listen and revolve what others said. At 
other times he would join in and sustain an animated part. 



114 ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. 

" Many were the wit-combats betwixt him (Shakspeare) and 
Ben Jonson, which two I behold like a Spanish great gal- 
leon, and an English man-of-war. Master Jonson, like the 
former, was built far higher in learning, solid, but slow in 
his performances. Shakspeare, with the English man-of- 
war, lesser in bulk, but lighter in sailing, could turn with 
all tides, tack about and take advantage of all winds by the 
quickness of his wit and invention." * None of the details 
of the " combats " of these two great men have been preserved. 
We can only imagine in what contrast was the deep-thoughted, 
far-reaching humor of the one with the polished and learned 
wit of the other; and with what good-humored smiles the 
one would hear his notions and his writings condemned, 
because the other protested that he could find nothing like 
them, either in the works of the tragic writers of ancient 
times, or even in those of the later rhetoricians. 

The fame which Jonson had attained procured him the 
position of Poet-Laureate in the year 1616. But being above 
the love of money, and improvident of the future, he always 
expended his Income, and continued poor. His last work is a 
pastoral drama called The Sad Shepherd. This is the produc- 
tion of his old age ; and, like the most of his minor poetry, has 
many passages of great excellence. In propriety and beauty 
of language, it is nearer to the works of Shakspeare than 
any of his other writings. In the language of Hallam, 
" It was Jonson's last song : age and poverty had stolen upon 
him ; but, as one has said, who experienced the same destiny, 
' the life was in the leaf/ and his laurel remained verdant 
amid the snow of his honored head." He died in 1637, and 
was buried in Westminster Abbey. On his tomb, in memory 
of his great and varied qualities, were inscribed the words, 

rare Bek Jonson. 

* Fuller's Worthies of England. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER. 115 

Next to Jonson in reputation, and the most eminent of 
the disciples of Shakspeare, are Beaumont and Fletcher ; 
for such was the constancy of their friendship and of their 
co-operation in literary endeavors, that their names and 
works have become indissolubly united. Francis Beaumont 
was descended from the noble family of that name in Lei- 
cestershire. He was born in the year 1585, and received his 
education at the University of Oxford. John Fletcher 
was born in 1576, the son of the Bishop of London, and was 
educated at Cambridge. Comparatively little has been 
ascertained of the personal history of these distinguished 
men. But they were known to be the most ardent and at- 
tached friends ; not only living together until the marriage 
of Beaumont (Fletcher was never married), and having 
their clothes and bed in common, but their thoughts also ; 
and while their works are voluminous, comprising more 
than fifty plays and several minor poems, there are only a 
few of these which it has ever been possible to assign, with 
absolute certainty, to either as his sole production. Fletcher, 
having begun his career ten years earlier than Beaumont, 
and having continued it ten years longer, is, therefore, 
known to have produced much the greater portion of what 
are recognised as their joint works. He died of the 
plague in 1625; Beaumont having died in 1615, in his 
thirtieth year. But, as many of these works, though not 
published until after, are believed, and some of them are 
known, to have been written before Beaumont's death, there 
is much difficulty in correctly discriminating the authorship. 
It has, however, been ascertained without doubt that Beau- 
mont contributed to the production of the dramas, PMlas- 
ter, The Maid's Tragedy, and A King and no King ; and 
while there are some who think that he assisted in at least 
fourteen other dramas, there are others who contend that he 
had no part in them. All agree that the remaining thirty- 



116 ELIZABETHAN DBAMATISTS. 

five dramas were mainly, if not exclusively, the production 
of Fletcher. It is a striking example of a generous and un- 
selfish friendship which induced these men to share with 
each other the labors of life, and to transmit to posterity 
their names and their honors undivided. From what the 
world has been able to identify as the sole product of each, 
it has, in the comparison of the relative merits of both, 
assigned to Beaumont the greater judgment and invention, 
and to Fletcher the greater wit. 

Of their dramas, the great majority are comedies; and 
these are incomparably superior to the tragedies. The latter, 
instead of attempting the higher objects of tragic compo- 
sition, aim mostly at producing surprises and disappointments 
by unexpected developments. No poets better understood, 
or more industriously strove for, the production of dramatic 
effect ; and though they are inferior to Shakspeare in the in- 
vention of characters, they were inferior in this respect to him 
alone. In scenic * interest, such an interest as was capable of 
attracting the constant attention of an audience, they were his 
superiors ; and in the next generation their plays were much 
more popular, and more frequently produced upon the stage. 
They were the founders of the Comedy of Intrigue, as it was 
afterward developed and perfected by the dramatists of the 
Eestoration. As Shakspeare borrowed his plots mostly 
from the Italian novels, so these poets borrowed largely from 
the Spanish drama, a great number of their scenes being 
laid, and their characters made to represent life and man- 
ners, in Spain. 

In the faithful representation of character, Beaumont and 
Fletcher were far inferior to Shakspeare. Notwithstanding 
their fruitful invention, their characters are frequently grossly 
inconsistent with themselves, and made to lose their identity 

^Scenic, pertaining to representation on the stage. 



BEAUMONT AND FLETCHEB. 117 

for the sake of startling and unexpected terminations to 
the plots. But the greatest fault of these poets, a fault 
shared indeed by nearly all the writers of the time, is the 
frequent indecency of their language, which contrasts all 
the more painfully with the pure morality and exquisite 
poetry with which it is found side by side. For this reason 
they cannot be recommended to the student; a fact to be 
regretted, as nowhere, save in Shakespeare, can there be 
found more sparkling wit, genial humor, pathos, and 
dignity, nor more perfect specimens of the English language 
in its richest and most poetic stage of development, than in 
the works of Beaumont and Fletcher. 

The following lines, from The Two Noble Kinsmen, will 
give an idea of Fletcher's graver style and versification : 

Where are our friends and kindred ? Never more 
Must we behold those comforts ; never see 
The hardy youths strive for the games of honour, 
Hung with the painted favour of their ladies, 
Like tall ships under sail ; then start amongst them, 
And, as an east wind, leave them all behind us 
Like lazy clouds 

Oh, never 
Shall we two exercise, like twins of Honour, 
Our arms again, and feel our fiery horses 
Like proud seas under us ! our good swords now 
Ravished our sides, like age, must run to rust, 
And deck the temples of those gods that hate us ; 
These hands shall never draw them out like lightning, 
To blast whole armies, more I 

Arc. No, Palamon, 
These hopes are prisoners with us ; here we are, 
And here the graces of our youth must wither 
Like a too-timely Spring ; here age must find us, 
And, which is heaviest, Palamon, unmarried ; 
The sweet embraces of a loving wife 
Shall never clasp our necks ; no issue know us, 
No figures of ourselves shall we e'er see 



118 m ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. 

To glad our age, and like young eagles teach, them 

Boldly to gaze against bright arms, and say, 

" Remember what your fathers were, and conquer ! " 

this is all our world ; 

We shall know nothing here but one another ; 
Hear nothing but the clock that tells our woes : 
The vine shall grow, but we shall never see it ; 
Summer shall come, and with her all delights, 
But dead-cold winter must inhabit here. 

A multitude of sougs and other lyric pieces are scattered 
throughout the plays of Beaumont and Fletcher. They are 
nearly all graceful and melodious, while many exhibit rich 
and graceful fancy, and delicate feeling. The following 
song is from The Captain : 

Song. 
Away, delights, go seek some other dwelling, 

For I must die : 
Farewell, false Love, thy tongue is ever telling 
Lie after lie. 
Forever let me rest now from thy smarts : 
Alas, for pity, go 
And fire their hearts 
That have been hard to thee : mine was not so. 

Never again deluding Love shall know me, 
For I will die ; 

And all those griefs that think to over-grow me 

Shall be as I. 
Forever will I sleep, while poor maids cry : 

Alas, for pity, stay, 

And let us die 
With thee ; men cannot mock us in the clay. 

Contemporary with those above mentioned, was Philip 
Massikgeb. He was born either at Salisbury or at Wilton, 
the seat of the Earl of Pembroke, in whose service his 
father was engaged at the time of his birth. He had spent 
some years at the University of Oxford; but on account of 
his poverty (having been thrown upon his resources because, 



MASSING EB. 119 

as is supposed, of his becoming a convert to the Koman 
Catholic faith), he was never able to take his degree. Like 
most of the poets of his time, he ever remained poor ; and 
was even indebted frequently to the charity of others for the 
means of Hying. His literary life began in 1606. He com- 
posed a large number of plays, about half of which have 
been lost. Of the sixteen which have been preserved, five 
are tragedies; while the greater number of the remainder, 
from the prevalence of earnestness rather than sportiveness 
in them, belong to the class of tragi-comedies. Of a serious 
and melancholic disposition, he was better fitted for tragedy 
than comedy. He wrote the latter apparently from neces- 
sity, which whoever does, must carry to the task a serious- 
ness and earnestness that ill accord with the true comic spirit. 
We have seen how the saturnine disposition of Jonson made 
him in his comedies — written to obtain bread — study and 
imitate the satirists rather than the comic writers. So Mas- 
singer, doubtless conscious of his natural deficiency in those 
qualities necessary for comedy, seemed to endeavor to com- 
pensate for these by the unrestrained use of vulgar inde- 
cencies, which w^ere the more gross because they were not 
natural to him. While his comedies have nearly all the 
indecency of those of Beaumont and Fletcher, they are far 
below them in wit and humor. In the earnest drama, how- 
ever, he is second only to Shakspeare. He was eminently 
successful in characterization ; some of his characters, as 
Luke in The City Madam, and Sir Giles Overreach in A 
New Way to Pay Old Debts, having a personality almost 
equal to that of the best of Shakspeare's. His inferiority to 
the latter, however, is seen especially in his want of fertility 
and his frequent reproduction of favorite characters. But 
in their consistency they are superior to those of Beaumont 
and Fletcher, and even to those of Jonson. With less of 
the learned correctness of the hitter's style, and less of the 



120 ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS. 

sprightliness of the two former, he is greatly superior to 
all of them in grace and dignity. Of his tragedies, the best 
are The DuTce of Mx.an and TJie Fated Dowry ; and of his 
tragi-coniedies, A Very Woman. A _'■"'. P 

Belts, and The Oitx Madam. 

There are many other dramatic poets of this reign, some 
of whom, though ranking much below those who have 
already been mentioned, were yet men of very great ability. 
such as Fobd. Websteb, Shibley, and Chapmax. The 
account of these old dramatists will be closed with the fol- 
lowing remarks from the Edinburgh Review: " Of them it 
may be said, in general, that they are more poetical and 
more original in their diction than the dramatists of any 
other age or country. Their scenes abound more in varied 
images and gratuitous excursions of fancy. Their illustra- 
tions and figures of speech are more borrowed from rural 
life and from the simple occupations or universal feelings of 
mankind. They are not confined to a certain range of dig- 
nified expressions, nor restricted to a particular assortment 
of imagery, beyond which it is not lawful to look for embel- 
lishments. Let any one compare the prodigious variety and 
wide-ranging freedom of Shakspeare with the narrow round 
of flames, tempests, treasons, victims, and tyrants, that 
scantily adorn the sententious pomp of the French drama. 
and he will not fail to recognise the vast superiority of the 
former in the excitement of the imagination and all the 
diversities of poetical delight. That very mixture of styles 
of which the French critics have so fastidiously complained. 
forms, when not carried to any height of extravagance, one 
of the greatest charms of our ancient dramatists.'" 



CHAPTER XIII. 

BALLAD-POETRY. 

The object of this book being to notice only the most 
prominent names in English literature, those of that large 
number of minor poets in the reign of Elizabeth, amounting 
to near two hundred, must necessarily be omitted. No 
mention has been made of the poets of Scotland (except 
John Barbour), many of whom, as Lyndesay, Dunbar, and 
Gawen Douglas, were eminent in their several ages. But 
though Scotland had produced, thus far, no poets to be com- 
pared with the great men of England, such as Chaucer, 
Spenser, and Shakspeare, yet, in one department of poetry 
it was richer than any other country in Europe. This was 
the Ballad; an account of which, for the sake of avoiding 
frequent references, has been postponed until now, when its 
rise and decline may be noticed in immediate succession. 

Allusion has been already made to the sacred character of 
the bards and their influence upon society. These were 
numerous in the early history of Great Britain, and of the 
modern nations of Europe. Losing their sacred character 
in the gradual progress of civilisation and Christianity, they 
yet existed under the name of minstrels ; and obtained their 
living by the recitation of historical and traditionary narra- 
tives, which were usually accompanied by the harp. While 
kings and other persons of distinction were used to keep 
many of these minstrels among their retainers, others of 
them wandered about in feudal times from castle to castle, 
in every one of which they were sure, of whatever nation 

6 



123 BALLAD-POETRY. 

they might be — snch was the hannlessness of their lives and 
the interest which they inspired — to find a hoe i wel- 

come. Great numbers of these came over with the C 
queror, whose successors were liberal patrons of them. Th :~- 
usually accompanied these chiefs to the wars, and rec-r 
special marks of favor from them, which they repaid with 
the composition of metrical narratives in honor of their 
patrons' prowess and achievements. 

After the Conquest, the native inhabitants retained their 
harpers, who used to sing the deeds of their ancestors 
Those who inhabited the northern part of England and the 
southern part of Scotland retained their national character 
much longer than did those of the south of England, 
border wars, of such frequent recurrence, afforded ample 
material for the composition of their songs. It is thus that 
in our ancient English ballads there is so frequent allusion 
to "the Xorth Countries A harper could not receive a 
higher compliment than for it to be said of him, "he c: 
frae the Border/' 

The importance of this national poetry may be imagined, 
when we remember how cruelly the Welsh bards were per- 
secuted by Edward L, when their immense influence, in 
keeping alive the valor of their countrymen, rendered them 
so long invincible by that war-like monarch. 

A character so popular as the minstrel's must in time 
come to be counterfeited for other purposes than those of 
song. His disguise was often assumed by lovers, for the 
purpose ("as minstrels doe easily win acquaintance any- 
where") of obtaining frequent access to the objects of their 
love. Sometimes the younger sons of great families followed 
the profession, and succeeded in winning the attachment of 
princesses. Versed in the language of love, and gifted with 
everv courtly grace, they were often irresistible to the fair 
ladies to whom, in such disguise, they paid assiduous court 



MINSTRELS. 123 

u Elles" said Fontenelle, referring to the women in the days 
of minstrelsy, "Elles etaient fort failles contre les beaux 
esprits" The security of the minstrel was sometimes avail- 
able for yet other purposes. Kings and princes did not 
think it disgraceful to assume his garb in order to the accom- 
plishment of the great purposes of state. A tradition runs, 
that when Alfred the Great, King of England, and his army, 
were closely beset by the Danes, he entered the Danish camp 
in the disguise of a minstrel ; and learning the position and 
strength of his enemies, planned the attack which subdued 
them. So, afterwards, a Danish king entered the Saxon 
camp, but failed of a similar result, only because his royal 
pride would not allow him to keep the money which was 
bestowed on him for his song. He was observed to bury it, 
and thus discovered his true character. Many are the 
legends of minstrelsy; legends of valor, of friendship, and 
of love. Every one has heard of the patronage which 
Eichard, the Lion-Heart, afforded to it, and of his delivery 
from captivity, on his return from the Holy Land, by the 
fidelity of his favorite minstrel, Blondel de Nesle; who, 
after long search, found the castle in which he was detained, 
by playing and singing the first part of a song, which he 
and his king, who was himself a minstrel, had composed 
together, the latter replying with the second part. 

As these disguises of the minstrels became more common, 
as society advanced in general knowledge, as the love of the 
marvellous passed away, as the literature of the Greeks and 
Eomans began to be studied, and as the nations, their gov- 
ernments being now firmly established, began to cultivate 
the arts of peace, the minstrels began to be listened to with 
continually lessening interest. This had the effect of dis- 
couraging those of gentle blood and of true poetic talent 
from prosecuting the art. They might write the song, but 
they left it to others to sing it to the harp. Thus poetry 



124 BALLAD-POETR Y. 

became separated from minstrelsy. The latter henceforth 
declined rapidly, until, when in the reign of Cromwell it 
was the profession of idlers mainly, an ordinance was passed 
in which all minstrels were '''adjudged and declared to be 
rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars." 

Between the best ballad poetry of England and Scotland 
there is a remarkable difference, characteristic of the two 
nations. That of England is joyous,-free, bold, — delighting 
in the fields and the greenwood, in gallant fights well fought, 
and in love which ends happily. Its humor tends to the 
comic, and its pathos to tenderness. That of the Scotch, on 
the other hand, seems imbued with a peculiar severity, akin 
to the ragged country and unsfenial climate which gave it 
birth. Its most striking feature, however, is the constant 
presence of the idea of death, and that under the most ter- 
rible forms. TVhen lovers are separated, it is usually by 
murder; and the murders of young maidens, of gallant 
youths, and of children, frequently with frightful cruelty, 
form a large and ghastly part of their favorite themes. Even 
the most simply humorous, such as " The Earl Marshal/ 5 
derive their humor from the peril and the terrors of death ; 
while the more pathetic draw their pathos from the power 
with which the most moving aspects of death are presented. 
In this respect the Scotch ballad-poetry is unique in litera- 
ture. 

The best class of genuine old English ballads are for the 
most part so long that it is difficult to give any satisfactory 
example of them. Of the martial ballads, the best, perhaps, 
is Clievy Chase ; of the humorous, The Tournament of Tot- 
tenham and the Miller of Mansfield ; of the pathetic, none 
surpasses TJie Children in the Wood, whose exquisite pathos 
has preserved its popularity for three hundred years. 

Of the Scotch pathetic ballads the following will give an 
idea, though they are usually more sanguinary or horrible : 



SCOTCH BALLADS. 125 

The Twa Corbies. 
As I was walking all alane 1 
I heard twa corbies 2 making a rnaen ; 3 
The tane unto the other did say, — 
" Whaur shall we gang and dine the day ?" 

" O doun beside yon auld fail dyke 
I wot there lies a new-slain knight ; 
Nae living kens that he lies there, 
But his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair. 

" His hound is to the hunting gane, 
His hawk to fetch the wild-fowl hame, 
His lady's ta'en anither mate, 
Sae we may mak our dinner sweet. 

" O we'll sit on his white hause 4 bane, 
And I'll pyke 6 out his bonny blue e'en ; 8 
With ae lock o' his gowden 7 hair 
We'll theek 8 our nest when it blaws bare. 

" Mony a ane for him makes maen, 
But nane shall ken whaur he is gane ; 
Over his banes, when they are bare, 
The wind shall blaw for evermair ! " 

The ancient ballad, with its antique and irregular wild- 
ness, at length disappeared, and was succeeded by another, 
written in regular measure, and more in accordance with 
the refined tastes of modern poetry. Writers of the latter 
sort of ballad were exceedingly numerous in the reigns of 
Elizabeth and James I. Their songs were published in 
books which took the name of Garlands. The old ballads 
were never composed with the view to publication. It was 
not until after the times when they used to be recited, that 
they were gathered together and printed. The Duke of 
Koxburghe, Bishop Percy, and Sir Walter Scott are especially 
to be remembered for their efforts in the preservation of 
this portion of our older poetry. 

1 Alone. 2 Crows. 8 Lament. 4 Keck. * Pick. 6 Eyes. 7 Golden. 
8 Thatch. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The Prose-Writers of the Reign of Elizabeth — Euphuism— Theological 
Writings — Richard Hooker — Philosophy — Gilbert — Lord Bacon — 
Sir Thomas Browne. 

Rich as was the age of Elizabeth in poetic names, it is 
comparatively poor in prose-writers. The general use of the 
Latin language by scholars, in all grave or important writ- 
ings, had hindered the growth of English prose composition. 
The example set by Ascham produced its natural good 
results. But the taste and style, of those writers especially 
who belonged to the politer circles, were temporarily vitiated 
by two works by Johx Lyly, Euphues, the Anatomy of 
Wit, and Euphues and his England, which for a time en- 
joyed an extraordinary popularity. These works display 
very considerable ability, but are written in a most affected 
and unnatural style ; which, however, became the fashionable 
speech of the ladies and gallants of Elizabeth's court, and 
"to speak Euphuism" was looked upon as an indispensable 
accomplishment.* Notwithstanding its extravagance and 
affectation, there can be no doubt that this short-lived and 
much-ridiculed Euphuism had beneficial results upon 
English speech. The Euphuists prided themselves on the 
intricate but elegant elaboration of their sentences, the 
originality and delicate appropriateness of their epithets, and 
the exquisite ingenuity of their metaphors ; and the fantastic 

* An amusing though exaggerated portrait of a Euphuist is drawn by 
Scott, in the character of Sir Piercie Shafton in The Monastery. 



THE THEOLOGIANS. 127 

absurdity once swept away, we can see the good effects of 
this in the long and harmonious periods, the striking figures, 
and the happy audacity in the coinage of words, which are 
characteristic of all the Elizabethan poets. 

The subject to which the scholars of England in this 
reign were mostly devoted was theology. The decline of 
Koman Catholicism, rapid though it had been for many 
years, had now been arrested, and mainly by the untiring 
exertions of the Jesuits. Ear from yielding to the preju- 
dices of the other Catholic clergy against secular learning, 
they, as has before appeared, cultivated it with constant 
zeal, and, very soon after the establishment of the order, 
there were numbered among them the most eminent scholars 
in the world. Henceforth, theological controversy was the 
chief employment of the great minds of the Protestant and 
Catholic churches; a controversy which became the more 
interesting toward the close of the sixteenth century, because 
of the frequent desertions, as of the celebrated Lipsius and 
numbers of other distinguished men, from the former, and 
their accessions to the latter church. Many Englishmen 
were engaged, and with signal ability, in this controversy, 
such as Jewell, Hall, and Hailes. But the greatest of them 
all, in learning and genius, was Richard Hooker. This 
eminent divine was born near Exeter, in the year 1553. 
His extraordinary proficiency in his studies, while at the 
grammar-school, had recommended him to Bishop Jewell, 
by whose assistance he was educated at Oxford. After he 
had taken orders, and when on a visit to London with an 
appointment to preach, he, in company with other preachers, 
lodged at the house of one Mrs. Churchman. What there 
befell him is given in the language of Izaak Walton, his 
biographer. "He thought himself bound in conscience to 
believe all that she said; so that the good man came to be 
persuaded by her 'that he was a man of a tender constitu- 






128 TEE PROSE-WRITERS. 

tion ; and that it was best for him to have a wife that might 
prove a nurse to him: such an one as might prolong his 
life, and make it more comfortable; and such an one she 
could and would provide for him if he thought fit to marry/ 
And he, not considering that the children of this world are 
wiser in their generation than the children of light, but, 
like a true Nathan ael, fearing no guile, because he meant 
none, did give her such a power as Eleazer was trusted with 
(you may read it in the book of Genesis) when he was sent 
to choose a wife for Isaac ; for even so he trusted to her to 
choose for him; promising, upon a fair summons, to 
return to London, and accept of her choice. And he did so 
in that or about the year following. Now, the wife provided 
for him was her daughter Joan, who brought him neither 
beauty nor portion ; and for her conditions, they were too 
like that wife's which is by Solomon compared to a dripping 
house." * 

The married life of Hooker proved to be far from happy. 
But if his wife was another Xanthippe, he was another 
Socrates; and proved, by his life, that a wise and good man 
may be superior to fortune. By the intercession of Edwin 
Sandys, a former pupil, with his father, the then Bishop of 
London, he was made master of the Temple when about 
thirty-three years old. While he lectured in the forenoon, a 
Mr. Travers lectured in the afternoon. The sentiments of 
the latter were Calvinistic ; and between the two there 
sprung up a controversy, which resulted in the production 
of his great work, The Ecclesiastical Polity. This is one of 
the most celebrated works in the language. It is an argu- 
ment in behalf of the principles and policy of the English 
Church. The author's mind had been well stored with the 
philosophy of the Greeks ; and in his retirement (for when 
in the midst of this work, he petitioned for and received a 
* Walton's Life of Hooker. 



PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 129 

humbler office), lie brought to his aid all the resources of his 
learning and reflection. In argumentation, in profound 
philosophy, and in eloquence, The Ecclesiastical Polity has 
seldom, if ever, been surpassed. It has been said that if the 
English Constitution of Church and State were to be entirely 
lost, it might be restored from this work. Hooker died in 
1600, in his forty-seventh year. 

Heretofore the physical sciences had received but little 
valuable additions from the moderns. Although, as we have 
seen before, those works of the Greeks which were translated 
into the modern languages were mostly such as treated of 
these sciences, yet the educated men of Europe, imitating 
the Arabs, to whom they were indebted for these works, 
devoted their time more to what the ancients did not than 
to what they did know; more to their speculations than to 
their discoveries. Hence, the occult sciences, as astrology 
and divination, had greater charms for them than mathe- 
matics or natural philosophy. Medicine was studied indus- 
triously, it is true, but upon principles as mysterious, 
speculative, and irrational. This science, too, felt the influ- 
ence which the fondness for the occult studies shed abroad 
on the first translations of the Greek scientific works, and 
became almost as mystical as astrology itself. The Scho- 
lastic philosophy, which so strangely held the minds of en- 
lightened men bound by its despotic rule, hindered, during 
nearly all the Middle Ages, the progress of those sciences 
which had been begun by the Greeks. We have seen how 
medicine, as it was practised by Hippocrates, was introduced 
into England by Linacre. But it remained for the reign of 
Elizabeth to fairly inaugurate those studies which have since 
been productive of so much wealth and other substantial 
benefits to mankind. 

The first work on physical science in our language was 
written by William Gilbert, a physician, on the Magnet : 

6* 



130 THE PROSE-WRITERS. 

a work which, founded on experiment, foreshadowed the era 
of modern experimental and inductive science. 

The name of Fraxcis Bacox is so often heard, the 
results of his labors are so constantly seen, and it is so diffi- 
cult to give, in a limited space, even an abstract of all that 
he did, that we can notice here only a few particulars in his 
eventful life, along with the list of his most important 
writings. He was born in London, on the 2'2d of January, 
1560. His father. Sir Xickolas Bacon, was the Lord Keeper 
of the Great Seal. Such were the promising talents of his 
son, when but a child, that the queen, who saw him often, 
used to call him her young Lord Keeper. At the age of 
thirteen years he was sent to Cambridge, where he remained 
nearly four years. It has been said of him, that when he 
was only sixteen years old. he already meditated the revolu- 
tion in philosophy which he afterward effected, and already 
considered (to use his own language) "all knowledge as his 
province." For some time after leaving the university, he 
travelled in Europe. In 15S0 his father died, and he was 
left without fortune. Conscious of his own abilities, knowing 
what he might do for philosophy if allowed to pursue it 
exclusively, and relying upon the services which his father 
had rendered to the queen, and especially upon the influence 
at court of his uncle. Lord Burleigh, he asked of the latter 
a sinecure office, to the end that he might devote himself 
wholly to his studies. But Burleigh, who wished to bring 
forward in the state his own son. Robert Cecil, and who was 
jealous of the superior genius of Bacon, refused his petition. 
Bacon then applied himself to the study and practice of the 
law. and rapidly rose to eminence. He continued his appli- 
cations to his relatives for office. Year after year he en- 
treated them, being dismayed neither by their refusals nor 
their insults. After nine years of importunity, he was made 
Queen's Counsel Extraordinary, an office without any pecu- 



FBAXCIS BACOK 131 

niary emolument. Three years afterward lie was elected to 
Parliament where, having made a speech, more patriotic 
than prudent, at a time when the royal prerogative was in 
the hands of a powerful and jealous sovereign, and finding 
that it was not w r ell received at court, he eagerly recanted it, 
and again sued for favors. At last, not yet ashamed of his 
servile importunities, but convinced that he could expect 
nothing from his relatives, he ceased his applications to 
them, and joined himself to the party of the Earl of Essex. 

This gallant young nobleman was the favorite of the. 
queen, whom, if it can be said that she was ever capable of 
loving at all, she loved more than any other human being. 
Shortly after this connection, the office of Attorney-General 
becoming vacant, Bacon was eagerly desirous of obtaining 
it, and all the favorite's influence was exerted in his behalf. 
But the Cecils, intimating that when the office of Solicitor- 
General should become vacant, he might obtain it, had that 
of Attorney given to another. The like disappointment be- 
fell him on the vacancy of the office of Solicitor, notwith- 
standing the ardent endeavors of Essex to have it given to 
him. The generous earl, in compensation of his disappoint- 
ment, bestowed upon him an estate worth two thousand 
pounds ; and, leaving England for the purpose of conducting 
an expedition against Spain, he commended Bacon to the 
kindness of friends during his absence, and, on his return, 
continued his own with characteristic liberality. 

Great as was the partiality of Elizabeth for her favorite, 
the impetuosity of his temper at last cost him the loss of her 
favor and of his life. Bacon, very early seeing the falling 
fortunes of his friend, and never having lost the desire of 
political promotion, not only abandoned him, but was un- 
grateful enough to appear voluntarily as the prosecutor at 
his trial. JSTor was he content with making a just and fair 
exposition of the case; but employed all the faculties of his 



132 THE PBOSEJ-WBITEBS. 

great mind to prejudice the court against the accused, whom 
he did not blush to compare with the worst characters in 
history. After the condemnation and execution of this 
unfortunate man, when the people, whose idol he was, vented 
their regrets and indignation in complaints, Bacon, as if to 
show that his ingratitude had no limits, eagerly accepted and 
obeyed an order from the queen to defame the memory of his 
friend. This disgraceful task was done in a pamphlet, 
entitled a Declaration of the Treasons of Robert, Earl of 
Essex. 

At the accession of James I., in 1603, Bacon, renewing his 
suit to his relatives, solicited, through the influence of "his 
good lordship," as he styled his cousin, Eobert Cecil, the 
honor of knighthood, and was successful. He now rose 
rapidly into power, and received the appointment of King's 
Counsel, Solicitor-General, and Attorney-General. With 
the sagacity of an experienced courtier, he attached himself 
to the young Villiers, who, he was the first to see, was to 
become the weak king's favorite ; and he doubtless thought 
that the offices to which he was subsequently raised were 
ample compensation for the* servility which he had to display 
to, and the insults which he had to endure from, this impe- 
rious youth. In 1616 he was made Lord Keeper, and in 
1618 Lord High Chancellor; being afterward ennobled by 
the titles of Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans. 

He who could obtain the office of a judge by servile 
means, might naturally be suspected capable of employing 
the same means in order to retain it. Bacon became the 
ready instrument of the king and his favorite (now the 
Duke of Buckingham), to gratify, under the forms of law, 
their tyranny and rapacity. Though far from being natu- 
rally cruel, he did not hesitate to employ torture whenever 
the king intimated his desire that it should be done. Many 
of his decisions were dictated by Buckingham; and at last, 



BACON'S PHILOSOPHY. 133 

in the abandonment of all honor, he condescended to become 
the object of the grossest bribery. This became so frequent 
and so glaring, that articles of impeachment were preferred 
against him. In yam he besought, with reiterated protesta- 
tions of his innocence, the interposition of the royal author- 
ity in his behalf. James, who was a coward, fearing to resist 
the storm of popular indignation, abandoned him to his 
fate. He pleaded guilty to the charges, and begged for 
mercy upon "a broken reed." The sentence pronounced 
upon him was remitted by the king. He lived a few years 
longer in retirement, in which his time was giyen to those 
pursuits for which he was best suited. He died of a cold in 
1626. 

The principal works of Lord Bacon are his Essays, pub- 
lished in 1597; the Advancement of Learning, published in 
1605; the Wisdom of the Ancients, in 1609; and the Novum 
Organum, in 1620. Besides other philosophical works, he 
wrote a History of Henry VII., and a book on the Elements 
of the Laics of England, 

Bacon, yery early in life, conceived the plan of remodelling 
the whole system of philosophy; and, great as were his labors 
to this end in the leisure which he was able to find, when in 
the midst of the duties of professional and political life, we 
can never estimate what would have been the value of those 
labors, had his life been given to them exclusively. 

The chief difference between the old philosophies and the 
modern, or those before and those after Bacon, consists in 
this, that the former endeavored to explain facts by theory, 
while the latter strive to rise from facts to general laws. 
The former, having laid down some principle or system 
which they found agreeable to their mode of thinking, 
exerted themselves to explain the facts of nature in con- 
formity with it; whence it arose that their explanations 
were frequently forced, inconsistent with each other, mystical, 



134 THE PROSE-WRITERS. 

and often more obscure than the fact they were meant to 
explain. 

Bacon's philosophy proceeds in exactly the opposite direc- 
tion ; from particulars to generals, from the known to the 
unknown. In dealing with any subject by his method, it is 
necessary to accumulate as extensive a collection as possible 
of facts bearing upon it and duly verified. This collection 
made, we are shown how to reject all irrelevancies and avoid 
false inferences ; and to this end the sources of error, both in 
observation and in induction, are indicated and classified. 
We are instructed how to seize and arrange ihe relations of 
the facts to the problem in question, and to grasp the se- 
quences of cause and effect. In this way the mass assumes 
lucidity, order, coherence; and from it we are able to disen- 
gage one or more general truths. This is the Inductive 
Method, to which all modern advancements in positive 
knowledge are due. 

But with Bacon the increase of knowledge was not an 
end, but a mean's. With him every science should give birth 
to an art ; all knowledge should lead to productiveness ; and 
that learning was barren which did not result in real bene- 
fits to mankind, or, as he termed it, "bear fruit." In this 
respect his philosophy was directly opposed to that of the 
ancients, who considered it a derogation that it should con- 
tribute anything to ameliorate the physical condition of 
humanity. 

It is infinitely more pleasing to contemplate Lord Bacon 
as a philosopher than as a man. In the decline of his life, 
in the loss of honor and fortune, he lamented that his time 
had not been wholly devoted to "contemplative ends;" for 
that which he had accomplished in them, he felt to be his 
only claim upon the forbearance of mankind. There is a 
melancholy sublimity in that clause of his last will and test- 
ament, in which he bequeathed his "name and memory to 



SIB THOMAS BROWNK 135 

men's charitable speeches, and to foreign nations, and to the 
next age." 

To these — though he was not a contemporary of Elizabeth 
— we may add the name of one who, if he cannot be called a 
philosopher, was a deep and indefatigable thinker, and whose 
genius is too striking and his works too full of beauties to 
be passed over in silence — Sir Thomas Browne, a physi- 
cian of Norwich, born in 1605. His most celebrated works 
are the Religio Medici, Hydriotapliia, or a Treatise on Urn- 
Burial, and Inquiries into Vulgar Errors. He died on his 
seventy-sixth birthday, in 1682. 

Browne possessed vast and various learning, a restless 
fancy, deep poetic feeling, and a melancholy temperament. 
He was essentially an essayist like Montaigne, and, like him, 
devoted much time to the study of himself; but, unlike the 
vivacious Gascon, he took but little interest, apparently, in 
the stirring events of his time, being solely occupied with 
his books and meditations. His nature was deeply religious, 
though not bigoted ; and even in youth he was of a sad and 
saturnine disposition. In his Religio Medici he says : 

11 As yet I have not seen one revolution of Saturn, nor hath my pulse 
beat thirty years, and yet, excepting one, I have seen the ashes of, and 
left underground, all the kings of Europe ; have been contemporary 
to three emperors, four grand seigniors, and as many popes : methinks 
I have outlived myself and begin to be weary of the sun ; I have 
shaken hands with delight in my warm blood and the canicular days; 
I perceive I do anticipate the vices of age ; the world to me is but a 
dream or mock-show, and we all therein but Pantaloons and anticks, 
to my severer contemplation." 

Browne's style and mode of handling his subject exhibits 
a transition from the boldness and exuberance of the Eliza- 
bethan writers to the severer and more artificial style which 
followed. In pursuing his subject, he is continually led 
aside into strange and unexpected regions of thought ; and 



136 THE PROSE-WBITERS. 

while his prodigious reading supplies him with innumerable 
apposite allusions, his fancy uses them often in the quaintest 
and most unexpected manner. How quaint, for example, 
in a disquisition on inglorious martyrs, is his admission of 
sincere sympathy for " that miserable bishop who suffered in 
the cause of antipodes;" or the expression in the following 
sentence : 

" There was more than one hell in Magdalene, when there were seyen 
devils, for every devil is a hell unto himself; he holds enough of tor- 
tures in his own ubi y and needs not the misery of circumference to 
afflict him." 

But Browne's writings are not all quaintnesses or recondite 
allusions; the reader often finds himself hurried from the 
grave examination of some absurd fable to suggestions as 
fruitful as they are novel, to reflections at once striking and 
profound, or to meditations eloquent, pathetic, and expressed 
in language rich, figurative, and harmonious. 

The following passage occurs near the close of Hydrio- 
taphia : 

" We cannot hope to live so long in our names as some have done in 
their persons. One face of Janus holds no proportion unto the other. 
'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are 
acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To extend our memo- 
ries by monuments whose death we daily pray for, and whose dura- 
tion we cannot hope without injury to our expectations of the last 
day, were a contradiction to our beliefs, 

* # * " There is no antidote against the opium of time, which tem- 
porarily considereth all things ; our fathers find their graves in our short 
memories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our survivors. 
Gravestones tell truth scarce forty years. Generations pass while 
some trees stand, and old families last not three oaks. To be read by 
bare inscriptions, to hope for eternity by enigmatical epithets or first 
letters of our names, to be studied by antiquaries who we were, and 
have new names given us, like many of the mummies, are cold conso- 
lations unto the students of perpetuity. 

" But the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals 



JSIB THOMAS BROWNE. 137 

with the memory of men without distinction to merit. Who can but 
pity the founder of the pyramids? Herostratus lives that burnt the 
temple of Diana ; he is almost lost that built it. Time hath spared 
the epitaph of Adrian's horse ; confounded that of himself. Iu vain 
we compute our felicities by the advantage of our good names, since 
bad have equal durations, and Thersites is like to live as long as Aga- 
memnon, without the favour of the everlasting register. Who knows 
whether the best of men be known, or whether there be not more 
remarkable persons forgot, than any that stand remembered in the 
known account of time ? * * * 

* Oblivion is not to be hired. The greater part must be content to 
be as though they had not been ; to be found in the register of God, 
not in the record of man. Twenty-seven names make up the first 
stoiy, and the recorded names ever since contain not one living cen- 
tury. The number of the dead long exceedeth all that shall live. The 
night of time for surpasseth the day, and who knows when was the 
equinox? Every hour adds unto that current arithmetick which 
scarce stands one moment. And since death must be the Lucina of 
life, and even Pagans could doubt whether thus to live were to die ; 
since our longest sun sets at right descensions and makes but winter 
arches, and therefore it cannot be long before we lie clown in darkness, 
and have our light in ashes; since the brother of death daily haunts 
us with dying mementoes, and time, that grows old in itself, bids us 
hope no long duration, diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation." 



CHAPTER XV. 

The Theologians — James I. — Chillingworth — Taylor— Barrow. 

Ik the account which has been given of the literature of 
the reign of Elizabeth, the names of many men once illus- 
trious have been omitted, while those of others have been 
mentioned, who, as they outlived the great queen, may be 
said to have belonged jointly to her reign and to that of her 
successor. Bat as the most of the latter had reached the 
prime of their lives and fame before her death, the general 
voice of mankind has made them all contemporary with her. 
During the reign of no other monarch, and in no period of 
time of the same length, has there ever appeared such an 
array of talent. Her long and prosperous career closed in 
1603. The impulse which learning had now received, 
henceforward greatly multiplied and varied the studies and 
pursuits of literary men. 

During all this period two powerful influences, in some 
respects antagonistic, were underlying and modifying, sepa- 
rately or conjoined, all European thought and action. These 
we have already had occasion to mention as the Renaissance 
and the Reformation. The former was a reaction against the 
asceticism and spiritualism of the Church, and its tendency 
was toward Paganism ; the latter was a reaction against the 
authority of the Church, and its tendency was toward Puri- 
tanism. In the south of Europe the former influence greatly 
preponderated, and in the north of Europe the latter; but 
in England they mingled and interpenetrated, so that scarce- 



JAMES I. 139 

ly any phase of thought or manners can be observed which 
has not a tinge of both. For the sake of brevity and clear- 
ness, however, we shall endeavor to follow the two threads 
separately, exemplifying the influence of the Eeformation 
as a spiritual movement by the eminent divines of the time, 
and the one great writer and poet of the Commonwealth, 
and then showing how the influences of the Eenaissance, 
which we have already seen in the Elizabethan era, were so 
modified as to lead to the license and immorality of the 
Eestoration. 

During the period from the accession of James I. (1604) 
to the execution of Charles I. (1649), England, with two 
unimportant exceptions, was at peace with foreign powers. 
James was naturally a pacific prince, and Charles had reasons 
of his own for shunning foreign war. But during a great 
part of this time Europe was convulsed by wars, especially 
the terrible Thirty Years' War (1618-1648) in which English- 
men felt the liveliest interest. Hence, while we miss the 
glow of patriotism which distinguished the time of Eliza- 
beth, the constant occupation of men's minds gives a mili- 
tary coloring to the literature of this time. The establish- 
ment of friendly relations with Spain, also, brought in the 
influence of Spanish literature, which is very marked under 
both these monarchs. 

In the person of James L, both the influences we have 
spoken of were combined, but n<*t happily. He loved learn- 
ing and art, and was a stanch Protestant; but his learning 
was pedantry without grace, and his religion doctrine with- 
out morality. In his court luxury and display took the 
place of magnificence, and manners grew more corrupt. 
But he is justly entitled to the thanks of posterity for the 
Translation of the Bible, executed in his reign and under 
his orders. 

Heretofore, the Holy Scriptures were read in the imperfect 



140 THE THEOLOGIANS. 

translations of Wycliffe, Tyndale, and Coverdale, which were 
executed in the midst of circumstances exceedingly unfavor- 
able to an accurate version, as they were made clandestinely, 
their authors being sorely persecuted ; one of them, Tyndale, 
afterward suffering martyrdom at the stake. The Protest- 
ants of England, both those of the Established Church and 
the dissenters, felt the need of a better translation. In 1604, 
the king commissioned fifty-four learned men for this 
work. Forty-seven of them undertook it, and in 1611, the 
Bible, as we now read it, was published as the result of their 
labors. The influence which this, the most precious of all 
volumes, has exerted upon our language, has been in the 
highest degree beneficial. It has done more than any other 
work, and probably more than all other works, to preserve 
the purity of the English tongue. 

Allusion has been made to the frequent accessions which 
the Eoman Church, toward the close of the last century, 
received from the ranks of Protestantism. These accessions 
were attributable partly to the superiority of the controver- 
sial writers of the former, and partly to the latter's violation 
of its pledges in the matter of toleration. There is no doubt 
that no sooner was Protestantism established by authority 
of law, than, so far from allowing the unlimited exercise of 
private judgment, it exacted from the citizen the most unre- 
served conformity to its requirements. JSTow, as before the 
Eeformation, to say that heresy was not to be punished, and 
punished by the stake, was itself heresy. In England, intol- 
erance, during the reign of Elizabeth, appeared the more 
excusable, because the recollection of the bloody persecu- 
tions of Mary was yet fresh in the minds of the nation. 
But with the increased circulation of the Scriptures, and 
the general extension of knowledge, a more tolerant spirit 
arose. One of those who went over to the Eoman Church, 
but who afterward returned to Protestantism, and became 



WILLIAM CEILLINGWOBTH. 141 

one of the earliest and strongest advocates of toleration, was 
William Chilli^gworth. He was a native of Oxford, 
where he was educated, and of which, when he was twenty- 
six years old, he became a Fellow. While at the university, 
he became acquainted with one John Perse (called Fisher), 
a Jesuit, and a man of ability, by whose reasonings he 
became a convert to Catholicism, and removed to the College 
of the Jesuits, at Douay. Archbishop Laud, then Bishop of 
London, who had been his godfather, and was much attached 
to him, induced him, by frequent importunities, to return to 
England, where, after much study and reflection, he returned 
to the Protestant faith, and was ever afterward one of its 
ablest champions. In answer to several tracts which had 
been published by a Jesuit over the assumed name of Knott, 
he wrote his famous work, The Religion of Protestants, a 
Safe Way of Salvation. The motive which had induced his 
temporary desertion of Protestantism, was the conviction he 
felt of the necessity which there was for a certain " infalli- 
bility in matters of faith." From a closer study of the 
writings of the Fathers, he became satisfied that no church 
could lay claim to any such infallibility; and his great argu- 
ment was designed to prove that the Bible, without the aid 
of tradition, contained within itself all that was necessary 
to be believed ; and that every man's reason ought to be his 
own interpreter. 

As a natural consequence of such opinions, Chillingworth 
was a warm advocate of toleration. It was his full belief 
and his ardent wish that the public service of God might be 
so ordered that all true believers might join in it. " Take 
away," he writes, "this persecuting, burning, cursing, 
damning of men for not subscribing to the words of men ; 
require of Christians only to believe Christ, and to call no 
man master but him only; let those leave claiming infalli- 
bility that have no title to it, and let them that in their 



14:2 THE THEOLOGIANS. 

words disclaim it, disclaim it likewise in their actions. In a 
word, take away tyranny, which is the devil's instrument to 
support errors, and superstitions, and impieties in the several 
parts of the world, which could not otherwise long withstand 
the power of truth ; I say, take away tyranny, and restore 
Christians to their just and full liberty of captivating their 
understanding to Scripture only; and as rivers, when they 
have a free passage, run all to the ocean, so it may well be 
hoped, by God's blessing, that universal liberty, thus moder- 
ated, may quickly reduce Christendom to truth and unity." 
The Safe Way has always, notwithstanding the diffuseness 
and inelegance of its style, been regarded as a masterpiece 
of perspicuous reasoning. Its author's scruples in regard to 
some of the articles of the English Church hindered his rise 
to those high offices which his talents qualified him to fill. 
An ardent friend to Charles I. in the Parliamentary wars, 
he was made a prisoner at the capture of Arundel Castle by 
Sir William Waller, while he lay sick. Being conveyed in 
this condition to Chichester, he shortly afterward died, in 
the forty-third year of his age. 

The junior of Chillingworth by eleven years, and his 
partner in the fame of an early advocacy of toleration, was 
Jeremy Taylor. He was the son of a barber, and was born 
in Cambridge in the year 1613. His promising talents 
attracted to him in his youth the patronage of Laud, then 
the Chancellor of the University. By his influence he rose 
to be Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles I. At the triumph 
of the Parliamentary party, having lost his office, he retired 
into Wales, from which country, on the restoration of 
Charles II., he was recalled, and appointed Bishop of Down 
and Conner. He did not live long to enjoy his honors; but 
died in 1667. His principal works are, Holy Living and 
Dying, Ductor Dubitantium, or Rule of Conscience, his Ser- 
mons, and the Liberty of Prophesying. Of these the most 



JEREMY TAYLOR 143 

celebrated is the last. The Ecclesiastical Polity of Hooker 
was purely an argument in favor of the doctrines and cere- 
monies of the English Church. The principles of toleration, 
as maintained by Chillingworth and Hailes, had exerted no 
influence upon the policy of Charles I. and his minister Laud. 
The proclivity toward a return to the Eoman Catholic 
Church, before referred to, began to manifest itself, at least 
in the matter of its ceremonials, even in the leaders of the 
English Church. For several years a High-Church party, 
started by Bishop Andrews in the reign of Elizabeth, had 
been growing up, which, while it yet held to the doctrines 
of Protestantism, was gradually approximating to the 
Eoman Church in the pomp of its ceremonials. The princi- 
ples of this party were especially dear to the magnificent and 
arbitrary notions of Laud. The nation resisted alike his 
attempts to force these ceremonials upon them, and the other 
despotic measures of the king — attempts which cost both 
king and prelate their lives, and ended in the temporary 
overthrow of the English Church. The mild and amiable 
disposition of Taylor prevented him from exerting upon the 
king the influence which he had the genius to make most 
salutary in rescuing him from his ruin. It was only when, 
a victim of Puritan persecution himself, and an exile in 
Wales, that he wrote his great plea for toleration. 

The pervading idea of this work is, that the fundamental 
doctrines of Christianity are comprised in the Apostle's 
Creed; and that, in regard to all else, there is that uncer- 
tainty which may well justify men in forming different 
opinions according to their different dispositions, and the 
different bias which they may receive from the circumstances 
of their lives; and that, therefore, nothing was more unjust 
or more unreasonable than to punish such different opinions. 
While he disavowed indifference to those religions "whose 
principles destroy good government, or to those religions, if 



IU THE THEOLOGIAXS. 

there be any such," he added, in the fullness of his charity, 
"that teach ill life/' he earnestly pleaded for the largest 
liberty of conscience. This was the first great work ever 
written for the sole purpose of inducing religious toleration. 
Though it was written when the author was an exile, yet its 
sentiments always comported with his charitable nature, and 
the Liberty of Prophesying has ever been the text-book of 
the truly pious and tolerant of all sects. In strength of 
argument, and in perspicuity of style, it is not equal to the 
Ecclesiastical Polity ; but in spite of the faults, which may 
be attributed to the circumstances in which it was produced, 
it has become a great and standard work in literature. 

Taylor was an eminent preacher as well as writer. Like 
Hooker, he was well versed in classic lore, and his sermons 
abound in beautiful classical images. To the graces of a fine 
person were added all the charms of an orator. He has 
always been considered the most eloquent of all the English 
divines. 

Isaac Barrow, the youngest of the three most illustrious 
preachers of the English Church, was born, the son of a 
linen-draper, in London, in the year 1630. In his boyhood 
he was far from giving promise of the career he was to make. 
At the Charter-House School he was distinguished for his 
pugnacious habits; and was so constantly engaged in fight- 
ing with his school-fellows, that he had to be removed to 
another school. His habits appeared so incurable that his 
father used to say, that if it was the will of the Lord that 
any one of his children should be removed by death, Isaac 
was the one whom he could best afford to spare. "When, 
however, he was placed at the school in Felstead, in Essex, 
he suddenly abandoned his old habits, and became a most 
diligent student. He finished his education at Cambridge, 
and was at first inclined to the study of medicine. He soon 
relinquished this for that of divinity. A decided friend of 



ISAAC BARBOW. 145 

the royal cause, it was expected that on the restoration of 
Charles II., Barrow would receive the promotion to which 
his eminent genius entitled him; but he was long neglected. 
He occupied successively the chair of Greek at Cambridge, 
and of Geometry at Gresham College, the latter of which, 
with the design of giving himself entirely to divinity, he 
resigned in favor of Sir Isaac Newton. He was at last (in 
1675) appointed by the king Vice-Chancellor of the Univer- 
sity, and died two years afterward. 

For solidity of intellect, Barrow has been generally ranked 
above both Taylor and Hooker. Not only as a divine, but 
as a man of science, particularly in mathematics, he has left 
an undying reputation. He wrote several works on science, 
the merit of which drew from the king, when he conferred 
upon him the appointment of Vice-Chancellor, the compli- 
ment that he had bestowed it upon the best scholar in Eng- 
land. His fame rests mostly upon his sermons and polemical 
writings. Barrow lived in the times when the controversies 
between the Protestant and Eoman Catholic churches were 
the most hotly conducted. The supposed proclivities of the 
Stuarts toward the latter, had the effect of making the 
nation more hostile to it. "This latter period of the seven- 
teenth century was marked by an increasing boldness in 
religious inquiry; we find more disregard of authority, more 
disposition to question received tenets, a more suspicious 
criticism both as to the genuineness and the credibility of 
ancient writings, a more ardent love of truth, that is, of per- 
ceiving and understanding what is true, instead of presum- 
ing that we possess it, without any understanding at all."* 
Barrow was the great leader of these controversies on the 
side of the English Church ; and the boldness and vigor of 
his intellect qualified him well for such a task. As a preach- 



* Hall, ii. 289. 
7 



146 THE THEOLOGIANS. 

er, while he was inferior in imagination and fervor of diction 
to Hooker, and much more so to Taylor, in logical acumen 
and in the elucidation of his subjects he was superior to 
both. He differed greatly from both in his style, which has 
neither the weight of Hooker's nor the polish of Taylor's, 
but is vivacious and conversational, frequently descending to 
triviality. His sermons were of great length, sometimes 
three or four hours long — a circumstance which, together 
with his great abilities, occasioned the ambiguous compli- 
ment of the king, that he was the most unfair preacher in 
England, as he always exhausted his subject, and left noth- 
ing for others to say. 

The English Church produced many other illustrious 
divines in this period ; but the limits of this work will not 
allow an extended notice of them, and we can only mention 
the names of Donne, South, Stillingfleet, Hall, and 
Tillotsok. Inferior as they were to the three great names 
just noticed, they enjoyed a high reputation in their day, 
and bore a conspicuous part in those controversies which 
settled the English Church Establishment upon its present 
permanent basis. Compared with these, the preachers of the 
dissenting churches were men of greatly inferior learning 
and ability. It remained for other times to produce from 
among these churches those great preachers, who, if they 
were yet inferior to their great predecessors of the Estab- 
lished Church in learning, were superior to them in what 
is more effectual in the pulpit, an earnest and fervid elo- 
quence. 

OTHER AUTHORS OF THIS PERIOD. 

BORN. DIED. 

Dr. John Donne Lyric Poetry 1573 1631 

Joseph Hall (Bp. of Norwich). Sermons and Satires 1574 1636 

John Marston .Dramas 1575 1634 

Robert Burton. Essayist 1578 1640 

Giles Fletcher Poetry 1580. . . .1623 



OTHER AUTHORS OF THIS PERIOD. 147 

BORN. DIED. 

Philip Massinger Dramas 1584 1640 

John Selden History, etc 1584 1654 

Phineas Fletcher Allegorical Poems 1585 1650 

George Wither Lyric Poetry 1588 1687 

William Browne Pastorals 1590. . . .1645 

Francis Quarles Poetry 1592. . . .1644 

Izaak Walton Biography, etc 1593 1683 

George Herbert Religious Poetry 1593. . . .1632 

Richard Baxter Religious Writings 1615 1691 

Sir John Denham Descriptive Poetry 1615 1668 

Andrew Marvell ". Poetry, Politics 1620. . . .1678 



CHAPTER XVI. 

The Puritans — Milton. 

Ik examining philosophically any period of history, we 
are almost certain to find among the influences which rule 
it, a reaction from the period preceding, resulting in an 
approximation to some earlier period. This law of reaction 
is referred to in the popular but erroneous expression that 
" history repeats itself." But the reaction is always attended 
by modifying circumstances which prevent such repetition. 
Puritanism was, in part, a reaction from the worldliness of 
the Renaissance; but it did not lead back to the spiritualism 
of St. Bernard or St. Francis; and the Restoration was a 
reaction against Puritanism, but it did not return to the 
chivalry and patriotism of the days of Elizabeth. These 
repetitions are not (to use a figure) circles, but spirals ; and 
the axis of the spiral is what we call " the progress of the 
race." So it is but an imperfect view to say of any great 
change that it is a retrogression, or an interruption of progress, 
or a misfortune for mankind. Each period is necessitated 
and determined by those which precede, and itself deter- 
mines those which follow. 

In Puritanism, the political and the religious element were 
inseparably connected ; it was as much a revolt against the 
authority of the Crown as against that of the Church. But 
in the proper literature of that period the religious element 
is preponderant. 

James, in placing the Scriptures in the hands of every 



PUBITANISM. 149 

man, had, without knowing it, struck a fatal blow against 
his own dynasty. The people now, for the first time, began 
to read the Old Testament, to grow familiar with the tre- 
mendous denunciations of the Hebrew prophets against 
tyrants and false teachers, and to apply them to the times. 
The New Testament, which throughout breathes a spirit of 
submission to constituted authorities, fell to a secondary 
place in their estimation. Their minds became excited by 
brooding over the awful and mysterious words of prophecy, 
in every line of which they read a reference to themselves or 
their oppressors. Egypt, Assyria, Moab, Babylon, were but 
types of the Church of Rome: they were Israel, God's chosen 
people: the king, a friend of Catholic France and Spain, 
was Ahab or Jeroboam, Avho made friendship with God's 
enemies and " caused Israel to sin f while Laud and the other 
Anglican prelates were the false priests and prophets who 
sought to seduce the people to idolatry. This was fanati- 
cism, but it was sincere ; and a wise prince would have made 
judicious concessions to a feeling which was tenfold formi- 
dable from having a religious basis for political discontent. 
Charles, however, resisted instead of conceding, and it cost 
him his life as well as his crown. 

When the Puritans came into power, being desirous of 
destroying everything which reminded them of a reign which 
they deemed despotic, and a church which they stigmatized 
as " prelatical," and entertaining the vain hope of establish- 
ing morality by legislation, abolished at once the ceremonies 
and festivities approved or countenanced by the church, and 
closed the theatres and other places of popular entertainment. 
So zealous were they against licentiousness, that even harm- 
less literature, of the lighter kind, was condemned as not 
tending to godliness. Hence the writings of the Common- 
wealth scarcely furnish any contribution to literature, being 
chiefly political and religious treatises, generally zealous, some- 



150 MILTON. 

times learned, but of scant literary merit.- To this, however, 
there is one great exception — that of a man who may be said 
to concentre in himself the literature of the period. Though 
his great masterpiece was composed after the time he belonged 
to had passed, yet nowhere do we find its characteristics so 
faithfully and so powerfully represented. 

Johk Milton was born in London, in the year 1608, and 
was educated at the University of Cambridge, where he took 
his degrees. After leaying the university, in 1632, he passed 
the ensuing five years at the home of his father, who then 
resided on an estate in Buckinghamshire. In this period he 
was wholly devoted to letters, and produced the Masque of 
Co inns, Lyeidas, L' Allegro, and II Penseroso. These poems, 
all of exquisite beauty, were composed while he had received 
nothing from Puritanism but its better influences, its deep 
religious sense, and its love of virtue. As yet, its gloom, 
bitterness, and rigidity, had not passed upon his spirit. The 
Allegro is full of joyousness, and exuberant in delight at the 
beauties of nature ; and the melancholy of the Penseroso is 
merely the pensiveness of a thoughtful poet. He pays an 
exquisite tribute to music (in which he was highly accom- 
plished) ; and that not the grave chants of the church, but 
the tender " Lydian airs " of Italy, and the "jocund rebecks " 
of his country festivities. In like manner he praises the 
comic stage, and the plays of Jonson and " sweetest Shaks- 
peare, Fancy's child." 

Comiis is a masque, representing the trials and the triumph 
of virtue. It is highly abstract, but abounds in passages of 
rarest beauty and melody. Lyeidas is an elegy upon the 
drowning of a young friend. In this we can trace the grow- 
ing influence of the Puritanic controversies, and he pauses 
from his musical lament to attack prelacy, reprove the bishops, 
and threaten Archbishop Laud with the vengeance of 
heaven. 



PRIVATE AND PUBLIC LIFE. 151 

In the year 1638 he went upon a tour in Europe. His 
fame, already very great, had preceded him, and he was 
treated with distinction by the many literary men whose 
acquaintance he made. At the end of fifteen months, he 
hastened to return home, on account of the increasing troubles, 
which were to end in civil war. 

The great talents of Milton, and his well-known ardent 
pympathy with the cause of the people, made him at once a 
prominent leader of their party. The prelates of the Estab- 
lished Church were far superior to the Puritan preachers in 
learning. In the controversies of these Milton lent his 
powerful aid to the latter. He began by a treatise on the 
reformation of the Church. Bishop Hall haying lately 
published his Humble Remonstrance in defence of Epis- 
copacy, and the answer of Smectymnuus* having been 
replied to by Usher, Milton rejoined with a work called 
Prelatical Episcopacy. In 1642 he produced another work, 
entitled, The Reason of Church Government. These contro- 
versies were conducted with that rudeness and bitterness of 
invective which had heretofore characterized most of the 
controversies of learned men: but they showed that this 
champion of the Puritans had the highest polemic talent 
and profound learning. 

Even in these polemical works, Milton often rises to a 
splendid and poetical height of style, prefiguring the grand 
cadences of his immortal poem, as may be seen by the follow- 
ing example : 

" O Thou, the ever-begotten Light and perfect image of Thy Father, 
who is there that cannot trace Thee now in Thy beamy walk through 
the midst of thy Sanctuary, amidst those golden candlesticks which 
have so long suffered a dimness among us, through the violence of 

* So called from the initials of the men who contributed to the answer. 
They were Stephen Marshal, Edward Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew 
Newcomer, and William Spurstow. 



152 MILTON. 

those that had seized them, and were more taken with the mention 
of their gold than of their starry light ? Come, therefore, O Thou that 
hast the seven stars in Thy right hand, appoint Thy chosen priests, 
according to their orders and courses of old, to minister before Thee, 
and duly to dress and pour out the consecrated oil into Thy holy and 
ever-burning lamps. Thou hast sent out the Spirit of prayer upon Thy 
servants over all the land to that effect, and stirred up their vows as the 

sound of many waters about Thy throne O perfect 

and accomplish Thy ^gjorious acts Come forth out of 

Thy royal chambers, O Prince of all the kings of the earth ; put on 
the visible robes of Thy Imperial Majesty ; take up that unlimfted 
sceptre which Thy Almighty 'Father hath bequeathed Thee ; for now 
the voice of Thy Bride calls Thee, and all creatures sigh to be 
renewed." 

Being very poor, lie was all this time engaged in keeping a 
school. In this year he was married to the daughter of a 
royalist. She lived only one month with him ; after which 
time, under pretence of making a visit to her friends, she went 
to her father's, and refused to return. Her husband's philo- 
sophic life was probably ill-suited to the gayety of a young 
daughter of a Cavalier. After repeated attempts to induce her 
to return, he commenced taking steps to marry again. This 
gave occasion to his work on the Doctrine and Discipline of 
Divorce. His wife was, however, at last induced to return 
to him, and having obtained his forgiveness, remained 
with him until 'her death. He was afterward twice married, 
having been a second time left a widower. The only leisure 
he enjoyed during these years was devoted to political and 
theological controversy ; for though not connected with any 
church organization, he was the friend of all the dissenting 
denominations, from his inveterate hostility to the English 
Church. His services to the Parliament were compensated 
by his being raised to the office of Secretary of foreign 
tongues. While Charles II. was sheltered in Holland, Sal- 
masius, of Leyden, who was reputed to be the most learned 
man in Europe, had been employed to write a defence of his 
father, Charles I. Milton was called upon to answer this work, 



CHARACTER OF THE TIMES. 153 

entitled Defensio Regis. At this time lie had already become 
blind in one eye ; and his physicians admonished him that if 
he wished to preserve the other, he must abstain from study. 
He did not hesitate to undertake the answer, which is a work 
of much ability ; but it is painful to see with what rancor 
and coarseness these two eminent men vilified each other. 

After the Restoration, Milton lay concealed among his 
friends, who feared that the prominent part which he had 
taken in the dissensions which led to the death of Charles L, 
might make him an object of his son's resentment. Charles II., 
however, with that clemency which, together with his many 
vices, he possessed to an eminent degree, refused to punish 
all but the immediate actors in his father's death. 

Milton had been long meditating the production of a great 
poem. During all the vicissitudes of his life he had looked 
forward to the time when he might be able to consecrate to 
this purpose the genius which he knew that he possessed. 
And yet, when he compared himself with Homer, or with 
Dante, or even with Shakspeare, no man knew better than 
he the disadvantages under which he labored in living 
in an enlightened but an unpoetic age. The justice of the 
observations made in the beginning of -this chapter will be 
the more apparent, when we remember that he, while think- 
ing upon his great undertaking, feared that he had been born 
too late. At one time, he thought of choosing for his subject 
the legends of Arthur, Merlin the Enchanter, and the Knights 
of the Round Table ; but after deliberating for many years, 
he, at last, being now blind, determined upon the Fall of Man. 
Preparatory to entering upon this work he had filled his mind 
with knowledge, and made himself familiar with the Hebrew, 
Greek, Latin, Italian, French, and Spanish languages, and 
their literature. In 1665 the work was finished, and two 
years later the Paradise Lost was published, having been 
purchased by a publisher for the sum of five pounds in cash, 

»7* 



154 MILTON, 

and five pounds to be paid at the sale of thirteen hundred 
copies of the first three editions. 

To form a due estimate of Paradise Lost, we must take 
into consideration the circumstances under which it was 
written. Milton was then an old man. He had seen the 
cause which he regarded as that of liberty and religion utterly 
overthrown, and its upholders condemned to obloquy, want, 
and scorn. The vehement reaction against the independence 
and austerity of Puritanism had carried a great part of 
the people to the extreme of servility and vice. England, 
instead of being mistress of the seas, and arbiter of peace and 
war, had become a mere dependency of France; and the 
chief men of the State, with the king at their head, were the 
pensioners of Louis XIV. A literature and a drama had 
arisen, as we shall presently show, never equalled in grossness 
of impurity; and uprightness of life, honor, and chastity 
were held in derision. 

From such a scene Milton could only sequester himself in 
disgust, and make his home a hermitage. But, even here, 
peace was denied him, for his domestic life was unhappy. 
Eemained to him only, to employ his mind, the world of con- 
templation and devotion. Had the dramatic power been his, 
it is probable that he would have written tragedies; bat his 
Samson, had he not otherwise known it, must have shown 
him that that gift was denied him. He could not, like 
Shakspeare, enter into the life of an imaginary personage, 
think his thoughts and speak his speech. He could only 
contemplate. Hence the epic or narrative form which he 
selected; the choice of the subject being determined by his 
religious temperament. 

As an entire poem, Paradise Lost cannot rival the works 
of Homer or of Dante. It has neither the simplicity and 
nature of the one, nor the perfect visuality of the other. 
None of the personages introduced have an appearance of 



PARADISE LOST. 155 

reality. Adam pedantically instructs Eye in recondite matters, 
and holds philosophical disquisitions with Raphael, such as 
Milton himself would have held. The angels, and eyen the 
Almighty, are introduced discussing the theological questions 
of the time, and the whole poem is steeped in controyersial 
divinity. Nor are the fallen angels exempt from the general 
spirit, their fayorite topics of conyerse being much the 
same as those of the angels, " — fate, freewill, foreknowledge 
absolute, " — only he puts into their mouths the sophisms 
which he would haye delighted to crush from a Laud or a 
Salmasius. 

Like Spenser, whom he studied, Milton has made most of his 
characters mere allegorical personifications. Thus his Satan 
is the personification of Pride ; Moloch, of Wrath ; Raphael, of 
Amiability. It has been justly remarked that the real hero 
of this poem is Satan. He is the chief moyer of the whole 
plot, upon him and his intrigues the interest depends, 
and his actions form the bulk of the poem. From the con- 
struction of the poem this is unavoidable. Not only 
would it be impossible, without irreyerence, so to represent 
the Almighty as to give a personal individuality and 
interest to the conception ; but as the theme of the work is 
the Loss of Paradise, the personage who succeeds in bringing 
about that loss must necessarily be the leading character. 
This was to be compensated by the Paradise Regained, of 
which the Saviour of mankind is the hero, and in which he 
triumphs over Satan. 

But with all its artistic defects, the Paradise Lost remains 
one of the grandest poems in any language. The grandeur 
of the theme, the pure and lofty religious spirit, the elevation 
of the thoughts and diction, frequently reaching the highest 
sublimity, the noble bursts of emotion, the exquisite rarity 
and beauty of the descriptions, and the grand harmony of the 
verse, with its splendid periods and cadences, like organ-music, 



156 Milton. 

all combine to make this poem worthy of the highest admira- 
tion, as one of the most splendid achievements of human 
genius, and one of the noblest monuments of English litera- 
ture. 

The great power of Milton lies in the grandeur of his con- 
ceptions and the dignity of his expression. His imagination, 
though rich and noble, lacks distinctness ; he suggests the 
scene, but we are compelled to supply the details for our- 
selves, according to our own ability. In this respect he is 
the opposite of De Foe, whose imagination is distinct to per- 
fect yisuality, but is never lofty. Dante combines both 
powers. These qualities of Milton's imagination are well 
illustrated by the two extracts which follow, the one describ- 
ing the erection of Pandsemonium, and the other the meeting 
between Satan and Death. 

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge 
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound 
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet ; 
Built like a temple, where pilasters round 
Were set> and Doric pillars overlaid 
With golden architrave ; nor did there want 
Cornice or frieze with bossy sculptures graven ; 
The roof was fretted gold 

The ascending pile 
Stood fixed her stately height ; and straight the doors, 
Opening their brazen folds, discover wide 
Within her ample spaces o'er the smooth 
And level pavement : from the arched roof, 
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row 
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed 
As from a sky. 

The other shape— 
If shape it might be called that shape had none, 
Distinguishable in member, joint or limb, 
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, 
For each seemed either— black it stood as night, 
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, 
And shook a dreadful dart : what seemed his head 



PABADISE LOST. 157 

The likeness of a kingly crown had on. 
Satan was now at hand, and from his seat 
The monster moving onward came as fast 
With horrid strides ; hell trembled as he strode. 
The undaunted fiend what this might be admired ; 
Admired, not feared : God and His Son except, 
Created thing naught valued he nor shunned ; 
And with disdainful look thus first begau : 

Whence and what are thou, execrable shape, 
That darest, though grim and terrible, advance 
Thy miscreated front athwart my way 
To yonder gates ? Through them I mean to pass, 
That be assured, without leave asked of thee: 
Retire, or taste thy folly ; and learn by proof, 
Hell-born, not to contend with spirits of heaven ! 

To whom the goblin, full of wrath, replied : 
Art thou that traitor-angel, art thou he 
Who first broke peace in heaven, and faith till then 
Unbroken, and in proud, rebellious arms 
Drew after him the third part of heaven's sons 
Conjured against the Highest, for which both thou 
And they, outcast from God, are here condemned 
To waste eternal days in woe and pain ? 
And reckonest thou thyself with spirits of heaven, 
Hell-doomed, and breathest defiance here and scorn, 
Where I reign king — and, to enrage thee more, 
Thy king and lord ? Back to thy punishment, 
False fugitive ; and to thy speed add wings, 
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue 
Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart 
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before. 

So spake the grisly Terror; and in shape, 
So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold 
More dreadful and deform : on the other side, 
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood 
Unterrified, and like a comet burned, 
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge 
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head 
Levelled his deadly aim ; their fatal hands 
No second stroke intend ; and such a frown 
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds, 
With heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on 



158 MILTOK 

Over the Caspian, then stand front to front, 

Hovering a space till winds the signal blow 

To join their dark encounter in mid-air ; 

So frowned the mighty combatants that hell 

Grew darker at their frown ; so matched they stood ; 

For never but once more was either like 

To meet so great a Foe. 

What property Milton had accumulated was lost by bad 
investments, and his old age was passed in poverty. But he 
was wont to console himself in this, and in the worse estate 
of blindness, with the music of his organ, with hearing his 
daughters read to him from his favorite authors, with the 
recollections of a virtuous life, and with the confident hope 
of a better life hereafter. He died on the 8th day of Novem- 
ber, 1675. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Restoration — Cowley— Butler— The Song- writers — "Waller. 

The political revolution which replaced the Stuart 
dynasty on the throne, brought about a vehement reaction 
in literature as well as in morals and religion. Charles II. 
was wise enough to take warning by his father's fate, and not 
to interfere with the will of the people as expressed in 
Parliament. Hence the great popularity which he enjoyed. 
If he had naturally any ambition to be a powerful and 
arbitrary monarch, like his friend Louis XIV., he wisely 
suppressed it, and contented himself with rivalling that 
monarch's self-indulgence, as he could not rival his magni- 
ficence. Never certain how long his popularity might last, 
he formed a close alliance with Louis ; and instead of raising 
funds for his pleasures by the dangerous experiment of ship- 
money, preferred to be a pensioner on the bounty of the 
King of France. The example which he set was followed, 
as a matter of course, by his courtiers, and most of the 
prominent statesmen and nobles received either bribes or 
pensions from Louis, who found the non-interference of En- 
gland with his schemes of conquest cheaply purchased at 
this rate. 

Thus circumstances all concurred to carry the reaction 
against Puritanism to an extreme. The court, the nobility, 
and the men of fashion, losing all patriotism, aped French 
manners and French vices, but in more degraded and 



160 THE RESTORATION. 

coarser forms. The poison spread widely, and a literature 
of almost unequalled immorality arose, in which the pursuit 
of licentious pleasure was treated as the only true business 
of life, and honor, good faith, public or private virtue, and 
the purity of the wedded life, *were only referred to with 
contempt and derision. But, however greatly we may con- 
demn the sentiments and tendency of this literature, we 
must admit its excellence in two respects : the brilliance of 
its wit, and the perfection of its expression. Both these 
qualities are seen to best advantage in comedy; and it is the 
great comic writers that are most characteristic of the Res- 
toration, in which we include the period between the over- 
throw of the Commonwealth and the Revolution of 1688. 

Before we examine the great comic writers, however, we 
must take some notice of the lyric poets of this period, 
among whom we find several tasteful and graceful writers, 
and, at least, two men of marked, though very different, 
genius. 

The most -ambitious of these lyric poets was Abraham 
Cowley, the son of a grocer, born in London, in the year 
1618. He was sent first to Westminster school, and after- 
wards completed his education at Cambridge. When a 
child, he was passionately fond of Spenser's Faerie Queene ; 
and, obeying the impulse which he received from reading 
that work, he had written several poems before he had at- 
tained the age of fifteen years, which he published with the 
title of Poetical Blossoms. Being a royalist, when the civil 
war broke out he went over to France with the Queen Hen- 
rietta Maria, as the secretary to the Earl of St. Albans, and 
became the agent of correspondence between the king and 
queen. Having been sent to England on one occasion as a 
spy, he was apprehended by the officers of the Parliament, 
and for some time imprisoned. At the Restoration, in 1660, 
Cowley, like a great many others, was grievously disappoint- 



ABRAHAM COWLEY. 161 

ed by the failure of his hopes of promotion. He bore the 
disappointment with a bad grace, and often threatened to 
retire to some distant retreat in the American plantations. 
He never carried his threats into execution, but retired only 
to Chertsey, where he died of a cold, in 1667. 

While Cowley did not share the immorality of his time, 
he shared its w r ant of depth and enthusiasm ; and sought to 
replace this deficiency — a fatal one for a poet — by metaphysi- 
cal subtleties, ingenious paradoxes, and tricks for effect. 
With him the form is everything, the matter unimportant. 
Hence his verses abound in ingenuities of structure, in arti- 
ficial ornament, and especially in frigid conceits only intro- 
duced to display the w T it and dexterity of the writer in 
discovering analogies between things apparently most incon- 
gruous, so that many of his similes and metaphors are little 
better than answers to conundrums. This over-elaboration 
and these fantastic conceits are symptoms which invariably 
accompany the decline of any literary period; and in 
Cowley we see the expiring flicker of the flame which 
brightened the age of Elizabeth. 

The principal works of Cowley are his Anacreontiques, 
Pindaric Odes, and Love- Verses. Of these the pieces which 
treat of love and gayety are by far the best. He had neither 
the poetic fire nor the lofty thought of Pindar, nor could he 
even feebly imitate the harmonious structure of the Pindaric 
verse. He was a scholar of high attainments, and the 
freedom and boldness of his translations have been justly 
celebrated. His life was pure from those vices which dis- 
graced the time. 

Cowley's frigidity may be seen in the two following stanzas, 
from a poem addressed to an absent friend : 



Friendship is less apparent when too nigh, 
Like objects if they touch the eye. 



162 THE RESTORATION. 

Less meritorious then is love ; . 

For when we friends together see 
So much, so much both one do prove 

That tbeir love then seems but self-love to be. 

Each day think on me, and I shall 
For thee make hours canonical. 
By every wind that comes this way 

Send me at least a sigh or two ; 
Such and so many I'll repay 

As shall themselves make winds to get to you. 

By comparing these verses with the little poem of Wyat 
(p. 65), the difference between the language of real and of 
affected emotion will be apparent. 

Contemporary with Cowley, and of the same political 
party, was Samuel Butlek. He was born at Strensham, in 
Worcestershire, in the year 1612. The contradictory accounts 
of his university education, some contending that it was at 
Cambridge, others at Oxford, leave a doubt as to whether he 
was ever at either. "All that can be said of him with cer- 
tainty," says t)r. Johnson, "is that he was poor." But by 
some means, it is now not known what, he became pos- 
sessed of a considerable amount of learning. Being an 
inmate of the family of Sir Samuel Luke, one of Cromwell's 
officers, he was made well acquainted w r ith the manners of - 
the Puritans. Their weaknesses were afterwards ridiculed 
by him in his great burlesque * poem Hudibras. The plan 
of this work was suggested by the Don Quixote of Cervantes. 
The hero, supposed to intend Sir Samuel Luke, is a Presby- 
terian justice 'of the peace, who, with his squire, a clerk of 



** The burlesque and the travesty are two opposite forms of comic writing. 
In the hurlesqne a trivial subject is treated with mock gravity and eleva- 
tion, as if it were a matter of high importance; in the travesty, a lofty 
or tragic subject is treated with triviality and low facetiousness. In both, 
the incongruity of the matter with the style produces the desired effect; 
but at the best they are degraded forms of art. 



SAMUEL BUTLER. 163 

the Independent Church, sallies forth with legal authority 
for the general correction of abuses. The book is a comic 
expression of the style of the metaphysical poets. It abounds 
in conceits and quibbles, exhibiting, occasionally, the most 
sparkling wit and liberal learning. Hudiiras was by far the 
most popular poem of its day ; and its popularity lasted for 
half a century; until, indeed, time had rendered the pecu- 
liarities of the Puritans either forgotten, or no longer 
remembered with interest. No poem was ever so much 
quoted, partly on account of its wit, and partly from its easy, 
jingling measure and quaint rhymes, which fix them- 
selves in the memory. But in spite of the wit and the 
learning which are to be found in it, its popularity becomes 
less and less, as the subjects of its composition are remem- 
bered more for the great deeds which they performed than 
the follies which they committed. 

Notwithstanding the popularity of his poem at the court 
of Charles II., Butler in vain looked for promotion. He 
continued in great poverty until his death. He died in 1680, 
and was buried at the expense of a friend.* 

The following lines are from the opening of the first canto 
of Hadibras : 

When civic dudgeon first grew high, 
And men fell out, they knew not why; 
When hard words, jealousies, and fears 
Set folks together by the ears ; 
When gospel-trumpeter, surrounded 

* At a later period a handsome monument was erected to Butler, which 
gave occasion to the following epigram; 

" When Butler — needy wretch ! — was yet alive, 
No generous patron would a dinner give : 
See him, when starved to death, and turned to dust, 
Presented with a monumental bust. 
The poet's fate is here in emblem shown ; — 
He asked for bread — and he received a stone." 



161 THE RESTORATION. 

By long-eared rout, to battle sounded, 
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic, 
Was beat with fist instead of a stick ; 
Then did Sir Knight abandon dwelling, 
And out he rode a-colonelling. 



For his religion, it was fit 
To match his learning and his wit : 
'Twas Presbyterian true blue ; 
For he was of that stubborn crew 
Of errant saints whom all men grant 
To be the true church militant ; 
Such as do build their faith upon 
The holy text of pike and gun, 
Decide all controversies by 
Infallible artillery, 
And prove their doctrine orthodox 
By apostolic blows and knocks ; 
Call pike, and sword, and desolation 
A godly, thorough reformation, 
TVhich always must be carried on, 
And still be doing, never done ; 
. As if Religion were intended 
For nothing else but to be mended. 

This period was also fertile in lighter song-writers, many 
of whom have left very pleasing pieces. Among these are 
Sir Johx Sucklixg, the Eabl of Dokset, Chakles Sed- 
ley, and Eichaed Lovelace. 

Some of Suckling's pieces are very spirited. His Wedding 
is a happy bit of playful naturalism; of which some touches 
in the description of the pretty bride, for example — 

Her lips were red, and one was thin, 
Compared with that was next her chin — 
Some bee had stung it newly ;— 

Her feet, beneath the petticoat, 
Like little mice stole in and out, 
As if they feared the light ; — 



RICHARD LOVELACE. 165 

have taken the fancy of the world. He has also at times 
flashes of high imagination. The lines — 

Her face was like the milky- way V the sky : 
A meeting of gentle lights without a name- 
have a touch of idealism worthy of Fletcher. 

The manner of Suckling's death was singular. While 
staying at an inn, on his way to Paris, his servant robbed 
him of his money and jewels, and to provide against his 
master's pursuit, fixed the blade of a penknife upright in 
the sole of one of his boots. When Sir John discovered the 
robbery, he pulled on his boots in furious haste, as the thief 
had foreseen, and the knife-blade pierced his foot, inflicting 
a mortal wound. 

Lovelace was considered the handsomest man of his day. 
His charming stanzas, To AUhea, from Prison, containing 
the lines — 

Stone walls do not a prison make, 

Nor iron bars a cage : 
Minds innocent and quiet take 

That for a hermitage — 

are to be found in all collections. 

A brief extract from a song of the Earl of Dorset, written 
on board an English man-of-war, just before the sea-fight of 
June 3, 1665, when the Dutch fleet was destroyed by the 
English, will give an idea of the ease and grace of these 
slight poems of gallantry : 

To all you ladies now on land, 

We men at sea indite ; 
But first would have you understand 

How hard it is to write : 
The muses now, and Neptune too, 
We must implore to write to you. 



166 THE RESTORATION. 

For though the muses should prove kind, 
And fill our empty brain,' 

Yet, if rough Neptune raise the wind 
To wave the angry main, 

Our paper, pen, and ink, and we, 

Roll up and down our ships at sea. 

Then, if we write not by each post, 
Think not we are unkind ; 

Nor yet ponclude your ships are lost 
By Dutchmen or by wind : 

Our tears we'll send a speedier way — 

The tide shall bring them twice a day. 



We now come to a poet whom we have placed last on the 
series, because he forms the connecting link between this 
and the classic period, as Cowley with the Elizabethan age. 

Edmund Waller, a nephew of the patriot Hampden, was 
born in 1605. At the early age of seventeen he had attained 
considerable reputation as a poet, and was elected as a mem- 
ber of Parliament. His political record is discreditable: he 
was a mere time-server, and promptly transferred his alle- 
giance to the party in power, and celebrated in verse the 
praise of Cromwell, and the " happy restoration" of Charles 
II. His brilliant conversation, sparkling wit, and personal 
accomplishments, however, caused his want of principle to 
be overlooked, and made him a w r elcome guest in society. 
He died at the ripe age of eighty-three. 

Waller was greatly lauded by his contemporaries and im- 
mediate successors for his smooth, graceful, and melodious 
verse, and polished language, which all strove to imitate ; 
and the fact that the principles of his versification were 
almost universally followed for about a century and a half, 
gives him an importance to which he is not otherwise 
entitled. 

The versification of the Elizabethan period was con- 



EDMUND WALLER. 167 

structed chiefly on rhythmical — not metrical — principles; 
that is to say, the lines were constructed in relation to their 
accents {ictus). Great freedom was allowed in the use of 
short, unaccented syllables, two or even three of which w r ere 
frequently used in the time of one long syllable. Thus 
their lines frequently present an irregular appearance to 
the eye, while they are perfectly musical when properly 
read. 

French versification, on the other hand, is strictly metrical. 
Each line must have a definite number of syllables, irre- 
spective of the fall of the accent, which, indeed, in French, 
is almost imperceptible. French verse, therefore, is very 
regular to both eye and ear, but extremely monotonous. 
Waller's system consisted in subordinating his rhythm to 
strict metrical rules ; to have his syllables exact in number, 
and, as far as possible, to let his unaccented syllables be also 
short ones. He was also careful to have his rhymes exact, 
and on strong syllables. The effect of this was to give 
extreme smoothness to his verse, but also to deprive it of 
nearly all its strength and variety. Verse had, however, 
become so unmusical in the hands of poets like Donne and 
Cowley (the former of whom was at times so harsh that it 
has been said of him that "his muse trots on a dromedary," 
and he " twists iron pokers into true-love-knots") that the 
melodious, if monotonous, versification of Waller was wel- 
comed with delight ; and its principles prevailed throughout 
the whole classic period. 

Many of Waller's songs are still admired; none more, 
perhaps, than the one which we subjoin : 

Go, lovely rose, 
Tell her that wastes her time and me, 

That now she knows, 
When I resemble her to thee, 
How sweet and fair she seems to be. 



168 THE RESTORATION. 

Tell her that's young, 
And shuns to have her graces spied, 

That hadst thou sprung 
In deserts where no men abide, 
Thou must have uncommended died. 

Small is the worth 
Of beauty from the light retired : 

Bid her come forth, 
Suffer herself to be desired, 
And not blush so to be admired. 

Then die, that she 
The common fate of all things rare 

May read in thee : 
How small a part of time they share 
That are so wondrous sweet and fair. 



OTHER WRITERS OF THE PERIOD. 

BORN. DIED. 

Robert Herrick Lyric Poetiy . .1591 1674 

Sir William Davenant Dramas, etc. . .1605 1668 

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon History 1609 1674 

"Weutworth Dillon, Earl of Roscoininou. Poetry 1634 1685 

Sir Charles Sedley Lyric Poetry. .1639 1701 

Gilbert Burnet History 1643 1715 

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester Lyric Poetry .. 1 647 . . . .1680 



CHAPTER XIX. 

Comedy — Wycherley — Congreye — Vanbrugli — Farquliar. 

Comedy is the dramatic representation of the characters, 
events, and emotions of every-day life. Its subject may be 
either (1) actual personages; (2) society in general; (3) ab- 
stract types of character. These divisions nearly correspond 
to the Old, Middle, and Late Comedy of the Greeks. Its 
mode of handling may also be threefold, according as the 
main object is to satirise vice and folly, to infuse virtuous 
and generous sentiment, or simply to amuse. These three 
modes are legitimate; but, as we shall see, the comic writers 
of this age found out a fourth, which has justly consigned 
them to moral reprobation. 

The comic poets of a time such as that which followed 
the Restoration, were incapable of feeling any honest indig- 
nation with vice, or any genuine sympathy with virtue; and 
there consequently remained to them but one object, that to 
amuse : to which, by a strange perversion, they added satire 
directed against virtue, as either folly or hypocrisy. Pleasure 
and self-indulgence were inculcated as the true business of 
life. The strange caricatures which they produced when 
they attempted a tragic character (as in Lady ToucTacood) 
or a noble one (as in Manly) shows how incapable they were 
of conceiving either a noble character or genuine passion. 
There remained to them, therefore, only open the excellencies 
of constructive ingenuity, wit, and expression; and these 



1T0 COMEDY. 

are what constitute their title to a place among the English 
classics. 

William Wycherley was born in 1640, and received his 
education in France. He was intended for the bar. but be- 
took himself to literature from inclination. He produced 
four comedies, of which The Country Wife is at once the 
best and worst. It has the most ingenious construction, the 
greatest wit and most natural characters; but is the most 
grossly indecent of any. 

Wycherley was a great plagiarist, never hesitating to 
appropriate whatever beauties he desired from the works of 
others, and in The Country Wife borrowed freely from 
Moliere's Comedy of L'£co ] e des Femrnes. 

The personal accomplishments of TV yeherley made him a 
favorite with the abandoned men and women of the court 
of Charles II. He had friends and fortune: but his vices 
lost them from him in the end. In his old age he made the 
acquaintance and acquired the friendship of Pope, thru a 
bov: but as the latter grow up. he became ashamed of him, 
and had to throw him off at last. The miserable old man's 
memory became disordered, and he used to weep, as he 
looked into his mirror and saw that the beauty of his person 
was gone. He died at the age of seventy-five years, and was 
buried in the vault under the Church of St. Paul, in Covent 
Garden. 

William Cokgreve (born 1670, died 1T29), as well as the 
two writers next in order, belong chronologically to the 
next period, but artistically they are a part of this, having 
imbibed its principles and continued its style and method. 

Congreve. like Wycherley, forsook the law for literature, 
and at the age of twenty-one produced his comedy of the 
Old Bachelor, which, at once, gave him a splendid reputation. 
A year afterwards he brought out The Double Dealer, and 
the next year, Love for Love. His reputation continued to 



WILLIAM CONGEE VE. 171 

grow with these dramas; and in 1697, he astonished the 
public by the production of the Mourning Bride, which 
showed that his versatile genius was equal to the require- 
ments of tragedy as well as of comedy. No literary man 
had ever lived in England, who, at so early an age, had 
attained so brilliant a reputation. His dramas and his col- 
loquial powers procured him not only a place in fashionable 
circles, but also offices of profit. And yet he listened with 
assumed indifference to the praises which the whole world 
lavished upon his works. Affecting not to think highly of 
them himself, he set the highest value on his reputation as a 
wit and man of fashion ; a weakness which made him finally 
relinquish his literary labors altogether, and spend the re- 
mainder of his life in idleness and frivolity. 

Such were the immoralities of the drama at this time, 
— immoralities which, while they were not so gross in the 
writings of Congreve as in those of some others, were yet so 
great as to render them unfit for reading, — that a work 
called A Shoi % t View of the Immorality and Profanencss 
of the English Stage, by Jeremy Collier, suddenly made 
its appearance. Collier was a non-juring clergyman, of 
intrepid courage, which had already been exhibited in the 
avowed preference which, even after the Eevolution, he still 
felt for James II.; a preference which made him renounce 
his preferments rather than take the oath of allegiance. The 
Short Vieiv x was a book of high merit, and poured upon the 
comic writers of the day a flood of merciless invective. It 
made a deep impression upon the public mind, already grow- 
ing disgusted with the indecency of the stage ; and it was 
expected that Dryden, the most powerful man of the day in 
argument and invective, would answer it. He was wise 
enough, and had enough respect for truth and virtue left in 
him, to be silent. When he did allude to the book, which he 
did in the preface to his Fables, every one was surprised to 



172 COMEDY. 

hear him confess that, in the main, Collier was right, ac- 
knowledge the justice of the rebuke, and profess repentance. 
Congreve, younger, less wise, and less virtuous, flattered by 
his brilliant reputation, and confident of an easy victory, 
took up the gauntlet. His answer was a failure, apparent to 
all ; and Collier had the satisfaction of knowing that, by his 
reply, he had completely vanquished his adversary. 

Congreve had made an engagement with the actors to 
furnish them with a drama every year; but he produced but 
one more after this famous controversy, The Way of the 
World. It was the most successful of any he had ever 
written. Henceforth, obeying his desire to live as a man of 
fashion, he refused to write more for the stage. He now 
spent his time in town in the winter, and, in the summer, at 
the country-seats of the great, with whom he was ever a 
welcome guest. With, the easy, time-serving manners of an 
unprincipled courtier, he managed, when the Tories came 
into power, to obtain offices that enabled him to replenish 
the fortune which he had accumulated under the Whig 
administration, and which he had almost spent in indolence. 
He grew prematurely old from disease, and at last became 
blind. But being everywhere admired for his wit, and re- 
fusing to be anybody's rival, by not only not praising his 
own writings himself, but by refusing to hear them praised, 
he was able, in spite of his age and infirmities, to preserve 
to the last his place in the best circles of English society. 
Twenty-eight years were thus spent in literary indolence. 
In 1729, he died from the injuries received by a fall from his 
chariot as he was making an excursion to Bath. 

The particular excellence of Congreve lay in his polished 
wit and admirable mastery of expression. His works, artis- 
tically speaking, are the perfection of artificial comedy. His 
conversations are the most brilliant in the language; perfect 
coruscations of wit, conveyed in language which cannot be 



WILLIAM CONGREVE. 173 

surpassed in ease and elegance. His Love for Love is the 
most generally admired of his comedies ; though some critics 
prefer The Way of the World. It is much to be regretted 
that the immorality of these masterpieces of perfect English 
renders them unfit to be placed in the hands of the student. 

Among the contemporary dramatists of Congreve, two 
others, Fakquhar and Vaxbrugh, were men of considera- 
ble talent. The most celebrated dramas of the former are 
the Constant Couple and The Beaux' Stratagem, and of the 
latter The Confederacy and The Provoked Wife. They are 
like the rest of the dramas of that age, abounding in immo- 
ralities and indecencies. In The Provoked Wife, however, 
there is less of these, and it exhibits a slight deference to the 
change of taste which the book of Collier was effecting. 

It has thus been summarily shown how our dramatic 
literature arose; how, for a short time, it flourished, and 
how it declined. It was now at its lowest state. What 
poetic talent there was, henceforth sought other subjects on 
which to be employed. Only Colley Cibber, failing as an 
actor, turned author and wrote a large number of plays; 
but one of which, The Careless Husband, ever attained an 
enduring reputation. 

As may be supposed, it is difficult, in a work like the 
present, to give any extracts that shall fairly represent these 
writers. The following scene from Love for Love, between 
Valentine, his father, Sir Sampson Legend, Foresight, a 
solemn, superstitious old fellow, and Jeremy, Valentine's 
servant, will give some idea of Congreve's dialogue : 



Vol. Your blessing, sir. 

Sir Samp. You've had it already, sir. I think I sent it you to- 
day in a bill of four thousand pounds. A great deal of money, brother 
Foresight. 

Fore. Ay, indeed, Sir Sampson, a great deal of money for a young 
man : I wonder what he can do with it. 



174 COMEDY. 

Sir S. Body o' me, so do I. Hark ye, Valentine, if there be too 
much, refund the superfluity ; dost hear, boy ? 

Vol. Superfluity, sir ! it will scarce pay my debts. I hope you will 
have more indulgence than to oblige me to those hard conditions 
which my necessity signed to. 

Sir S. Sir, how, I beseech you, what were you pleased to intimate \ 
concerning indulgence ? 

Val. Why, sir, that you would not go to the extremity of the con- 
ditions, but release me at least from some part. 

Sir S. Oh, sir, I understand you. That's all, eh ? 

Val. Yes, sir, all that I presume to ask ; but what you, out of fa- 
therly fondness, will be pleased to add, shall be doubly welcome. 

Sir S. No doubt of it, sweet sir ; your filial piety and my fatherly 
fondness would fit like two tallies. Here's a rogue, brother Foresight, 
makes a bargain under hand and seal in the morning, and would be 
released from it in the afternoon ; here's a rogue, dog, here's conscience 
and honesty ! This is the morality of your wits ! You are a wit, and 

have been a beau, and may be a why, sirrah, is it not here under 

hand and seal ? — can you deny it ? 

Val. Sir, I don't deny it. 

Sir S. Sirrah, you'll be hanged. Has he not a rogue's face ? Speak, 
brother, you understand physiognomy ; — a hanging look, to me ; — of 
all my boys the most unlike me ; he has a confounded Tyburn-face, 
without benefit of clergy. 

Fore. Hum — truly I don't care to discourage a young man. He has 
a violent death in his face ; but, I hope, no danger of hanging. 

Val. Sir, is this usage for your son ? — for that old weather-headed 
fool, I know how to laugh at him ; but you, sir 

Sir S. You, sir ! and you, sir ! — why, who are you, sir ? 

Val. Your son, sir. 

Sir S. That's more than I know, and I believe not. 

Val. I hope not. 

Sir S. Did you ever hear the like ? Did you ever hear 

the like? Body o' me 

Val. I would have an excuse for your barbarity and unnatural 
usage. 

Sir S. Excuse! impudence! Why, sirrah, mayn't I do what I 

please? Are you not my slave? 'Oons ! who are you? 

whence come you? what brought you into the world? how come you 
here, sir ? — here — to stand here, upon those two legs, and look erect 
with that audacious face, ha? — Answer me that! 

Val Here I am : and if you don't mean to provide for 

me, I desire you would leave me as you found me. 



WILLIAM COSGREVE. 175 

Sir S. "With all my heart ; come, uncase, strip, and go naked out of 
the world as you came into it. 

Val. My clothes are soon put off; but you must also divest me of 
reason, thought, passions, inclinations, affections, appetites, senses, and 
the huge train of attendants that came into the world with me. 

Sir S. 'Oons ! can't a private man be born without all 

these followers ? W r hy, nothing under an emperor should be born 
with appetites. Why, at this rate, a fellow that has but a groat in his 
pocket, may have a stomach capable of a ten-shilling ordinary. 

Jeremy. Nay, that's clear as the sun. 

Sir S. Here's a cormorant, too ! — 'S' heart, this fellow was not born 
with you ? — I am not his father, am I ? 

Jer. By the provision that's made for me, you might be — and to tell 
your worship the truth, I believe you are, for I find I was born with 
those same appetites my master speaks of. 

Sir S. Why, look you there, now ! I'll maintain that by the rule 
of right reason this fellow ought to have been born without a palate. 
'STieart, what should he do with a distinguishing taste? I warrant 
now he'd rather eat a pheasant than a piece of poor-john, and smell 
now — why, I warrant he can smell, and loves perfumes above a stink. 
— And music — don't you love music, scoundrel ? 

Jer. Yes, I have a reasonable good ear, sir, as to jigs and country- 
dances, and the like : I don't much matter your solos or sonatas ; they 
give me the spleen. 

Sir S. The spleen! — ha! ha! ha! — a plague confound you! — solos 
or sonatas! 'Oons ! whose son aie you? how were you engendered, 
muck-worm ? 

Jer. I am, by my father, the son of a chairman; my mother sold 
oysters in winter and cucumbers in summer; and I came up-stairs into 
the world, for I was born in a cellar. 

Fore. By your looks, you should go up-stairs out of the world, too, 
friend. 

Sir S. And if this rogue were anatomized now, and dissected, he 
has his vessels of digestion and concoction, and so forth, large enough 
for the inside of a cardinal — this son of a cucumber ! These things 
are unaccountable and unreasonable. Body o' me, why was I not a 
bear, that my cubs might have lived upon sucking their paws ? Xature 
has been provident only to bears and spiders : the one has his nutri- 
ment in his own hands, and the other spins his habitation out of his 
own entrails. 

To this period, also, belong the dramatists Thomas Otttay 
and Xathaxiel Lee. Ot way's comedies were licentious, 



176 COMEDY. 

and are now nearly forgotten ; but two of his tragedies, The 
Orphan and Venice Preserved, are still greatly admired for 
their pathos. Lee (often called " Mad Nat. Lee," as he was 
insane for some years) has much tenderness, but an imagina- 
tion so wild that it led him into extravagance, while a defi- 
ciency of judgment often causes him to mistake cant and 
bombast for energy. Many passages of his writings, how- 
ever, possess much beauty. Both these poets were men of 
wild life, and came to tragic ends : Otway, it is said, dying 
of starvation at the age of thirty-four, and Lee being killed 
by a fall on his way home from a debauch. 



CHAPTER XX. 

The Philosophers — Hobbes — Cudworth — Locke — Berkeley — Boyle — 
New ton — Halley. 

That same independence of thought, in poetry and in 
religion, which the Reformation was mainly instrumental in 
bringing about, began to characterize philosophy. We have 
seen how abject was the homage which, for ages, was paid to 
Aristotle; an homage which Bacon w T as the first to refuse. 
As for the service which the latter rendered to science, he 
was inferior to the great astronomers, Kepler and Galileo. 
His greatest praise is that he was the first successful rebel 
against the despotism of ancient prejudice ; that he was the 
first to unfetter the mind from the shackles of precedents, 
and to teach that it was not only a right, but a duty, to 
make innovations upon evils which had hitherto been re- 
spected only because they were old. Disregarding that 
reverence for the past which had been so great an obstacle 
to the progress of civilisation, he made the famous declara- 
tion, "we are the ancients;" a declaration which dissolved 
the spell of ages, and set the minds of mankind free for the 
independent study of every province of human knowledge. 

Among the first and greatest of those who, profiting by 
his teachings, began the pursuit of free inquiry, was Thomas 
Hobbes. He w 7 as a native of Malmesbury, in Wiltshire, 
where he was born in 1588. He was educated at Oxford. 
At twenty years of age, he became the tutor to Lord Caven- 
dish, the heir of the house of Devonshire. He remained an 

8* 



ITS THE PHILOSOPHERS. 

inmate of this family, with the exception of five or six years 
spent on the Continent, until his death, in IT t9 ; a period 
of seventy-two years. With the spirit of the boldest inde- 
pendence,, he eagerly sought, by the strength of his own 

reason alone, to find out his relation to the universe. 
He wrote a large number of boohs, ethical and political, 
besides one or two histories of small importance. The most 
cel-brared of his works is the L^:l::~ 

The political system advocated by Hobbes is that of a 
monarchy, with absolute power in the sovereign. Regarding 
mankind as wholly selfish, presuming that, in a state of 
nature, every man seizes and holds whatever he can. with 
regard to the right, he attributed the origin of government 
to a covenant between the multitude and their governor, of 
whatever nature that governor may be. conditioned to give 
up to him an unlimited control, but which was to be used 
by him for their protection and happiness. A king is. in 
his opinion, the best governor: and while it is his duty 
faithfully to provide for the good of his people, it is their 
duty to take whatever he does provide, and to submit to it, 
even to tiie extent of believing whatever doctrines he com- 
mands to be taught. Xo subject, therefore, has the right to 
the exercise of any religious opinions unless they are such as 
have been already sanctioned by the sovereign. He is the 
; * Leviathan, or mortal god. to whom, under the immortal 
God. we owe our peace and defence : " whose authority shouhl 
be not only unlimited and unquestionable in his lifetime, 
but should include the power of an unquestioned appoint- 
ment of his successor. 

In the discussion of metaphysical and moral questions, 
especially in the latter, he is equally bold and startling. 
ZN ever forgetting the notion of the utter selfishness of man- 
kind, he refers all good and evil in their actions, not to any 
original merit and demerit, but to their being: connected 



THOMAS HOBBES. 179 

with the objects of their appetites and aversions. The 
terms, good and evil, are used, not with reference to objects, 
but in reference to- him who uses those terms. Whatever is 
an object of his desire, is, with reference to him, good; 
whatever is an object of his aversion, is, with reference to 
him, evil. Every passion of the human heart is referred to 
this selfish standard. According to Hobbes, w T hen a man 
weeps, it is from a sense of his own weakness : the tears of 
reconciliation are thus accounted for, because revenge is then 
impossible. Laughing is from a consciousness of our own 
exaltation, either in comparison with others, or with our 
former selves. Even the pity which we feel for the misfor- 
tunes of others is overcome by the greater joy which we feel 
in looking upon those misfortunes, and contrasting them 
with our own security. 

The works of Hobbes exerted a great and hurtful influence 
upon his generation. His personal character, modest and 
irreproachable as it was, aided by the unequalled acuteness 
and ingenuity of his intellect, and the independent spirit of 
the public mind, drew to him many disciples. As specimens 
of style, they are superior to any works which preceded 
them. " He is clear, precise, spirited, and, above all, free in 
general from the faults of his predecessors; his language is 
sensibly less obsolete ; he is never vulgar, rarely, if ever, 
quaint or pedantic." * 

The great opponent of Hobbes was Ealph Cudw^orth. 
He was born in Somerset in the year 1617, rose to various 
subordinate offices in the Church, and died in 1688. His 
two principal works are the Intellectual System of the Uni- 
verse and the Immutability of Morality. The object of these 
was to establish the liberty of human actions against fatal- 
ism, and the existence of good and evil independently of 

* Hall, ii. 410. 



ISO 



THE PHILOSOPHERS. 



trary rules. To this task h:- btuunht u:t only the 

ihottlty ■: nine most acutely, hu: an incredible amount 

earning. His writings rank among the best intellectual 

efforts in English, bur his style is pedauti:. :-u ; ab: 1 '.;v 
quotations from the ancients, and. therefore, in simplicity 
and perspicuity far inferior to that of Hobhes. Such was 
his fairness in the statements of the doctrines of his 
adversaries, that he was often misunderstood and misrepre- 
sented. 

At last "the much injured author grew disgusted: his 
ardor slackened; and the rest and far greatest pari of the 
defence never appeared.'' Cud worth was one of the most 
learned men whom England has produced. He was thor- 
oughly familiar with the works of the ancients. In intellec- 
tual vigor, he is ranked below HobbeS. but far above those 
metaphysicians who yet adhered to the doctrines of the 
Scholastic philosophy. 

Heretofore the study of metaphysical philosophy in 
England was confined to men of learning. The man who 
gave to it popularity and established a code for it. was Johx 
Locke. He was born at TTryngton. in the county of Bristol, 
in the vear 1632. His first studies were riven to medicine. 



astronomv. and natural historv. ' 



>ut were diY 



;*rted from these 



to those branches with which his fame afterward became so 
issolubly connected. In the quarrels between the princes 
of the Stuart family and the English people,, he sided with 
the latter. The consequences of this were his subjection to 
persecution and exile. During the latter years of the reign 
of Charles II.. and the whole of that of JanieS II.. he enjoyed 
an asylum in Holland. He returned to his native country 
on the accession of the Prince and Princess of Orange, in 
1688. and lived a quiet and unmolested life until the year 
1704, when he died. 

The most Celebrated work of Locke is his £■<■<.' y o;-i :\e 



JOHN LOCKE. 181 

Human Understanding. Twenty years had been spent in 
its preparation. It was published in 1690; and its une- 
qualled merits, aided by the firm establishment of the 
political party in whose cause he had suffered, gave to it an 
immense popularity, and established it as the text-book in 
metaphysical philosophy. This Essay treats of two leading 
questions: the origin of ideas and the principle of knowl- 
edge. Denying the doctrine that ideas are innate, he taught 
that there were two sources of them: sensation, by which we 
obtain ideas of things distinct from ourselves; and reflec- 
tion, by which we obtain ideas of the operations of our own 
minds. Eeflection, implying, as it does in common with 
sensation, feelings and sentiments, is termed by Locke an 
internal sense. Ideas are divided into two classes : simple, 
as the immediate product of sensation and reflection; and 
complex, which the understanding forms from simple ideas 
by various combinations of these elements. Treating of 
these two sets of ideas, tracing how, by continual combina- 
tions of them according to association, the mind forms all 
its conceptions, he then treats of the principle of knowledge, 
which depends upon the conformity of these ideas to their 
several objects; sensible ideas representing the qualities of 
external objects, and ideas of reflection representing all the 
operations of the mind. 

The very extent and comprehensiveness of Locke's studies, 
embracing all the learning on physiological subjects then 
extant, occasionally prevented him from distinguishing be- 
tween his own thoughts and those of others. Thus, appa- 
rently, without knowing that he did not originate it, he 
revived the notion of the images of sensible objects entering 
the soul through the medium of the external senses, and so 
becoming the representatives of those objects. In his work 
are other ideas, which were found in the works of Gassendi, 
Bacon, and others. In his main theory he was wholly 



182 THE PHILOSOPHERS. 

original, and no man was less deserving than lie the name 
of a plagiarist. 

This work, notwithstanding the opposition that has been 
made to many of the principles it inculcates, and the ac- 
knowledged errors which subsequent researches have estab- 
lished that some of them contain, has been of incalculable 
aid to the studies of the phenomena of the human mind. 
"It is truly the first real chart of the coasts; wherein some 
may be laid down incorrectly; but the general relations of 
all are perceived." 

Besides the Essay on the Human Understanding, Locke 
is the author of other productions, among which the best 
known are his Letter on Toleration, a Treatise on Education* 
and the Theory of Government, A Socinian* in faith, his 
liberal and enlightened mind comprehended the injustice 
and the folly of religious intolerance. While the argument 
of Taylor was founded upon the difficulty of knowing the 
truth with certainty, his was founded upon the principles 
urged in his Theory of Government ; that government was a 
compact between the people and the magistrate, by the 
unanimous consent of the former, and made solely for the 
protection of their temporal interests — a compact which 
could be annulled by them on the violation of its principles 
by the magistrate ; and that the latter had no right to inter- 
fere in religious matters except to protect every form of faith 
which was not immoral in its character, or subversive of 
good government. f His sentiments on education, like those 

■■' " Soeinians : persons who accept the opinions of Faustus Socinus 
(died 1562) and his nephew Lrelius (died 1601), Sienese noblemen. They 
held: (1) That the Eternal Father was the one only God, and that Jesus 
Christ was not otherwise God than by his superiority to all other crea- 
tures: (2) That Christ was not a mediator: (3) That hell will endure for 
a time, after which the soul and body will be destroyed.'' — Hook. 

f " If any man err from the right way it is his own misfortune, no injury 
to thee: nor therefore art thou to punish him in the things of this life, 



GEORGE BERKELEY. 183 

upon government, were of that humane and reasonable char- 
acter which were in so pleasing contrast with the old des- 
potisms, not only of the school-room, but of the family-circle. 
These latter despotisms aided, and were aided by, those of the 
Stuart kings who sought their justification in the appoint- 
ment of God, and in the rule of patriarchal times. The 
Treatise on Education, though containing some erroneous 
doctrines, attributable probably to the fact that the author 
never was a father, is yet very far superior to anything of 
the kind which preceded it. 

The next most celebrated metaphysician to Locke, in 
point of time, and the last one to be noticed in this period, 
was George Berkeley. He was a descendant of an English 
family, but a native of Kilcren, Kilkenny County, Ireland, 
where he was born, in 1684. He was educated at Trinity 
College, Dublin. His promotion in the church, notwith- 
standing his reputation for ability and virtue, was the longer 
delayed on account of his Tory principles. It was not until 
he was fifty years old that he was raised to the Bishopric of 
Cloyne. He died in 1753. His blameless life procured from 
him the compliment of Pope, to which all men agreed, that 
he was possessed of "every virtue under heaven." The most 
important works of Berkeley are his Theory of Vision, pub- 
lished in 1709; Principles of Human Knowledge, in 1710; 
Dialogue between Hijlas and Philonous, 1713; Alciphron, 

because thou supposest he will be miserable in that which is to come." 
Letter on Toleration. Elsewhere, in the same treatise, he says: "But 
this being not a proper place to inquire into the marks of the true church, 
I will only mind those that contend so earnestly for the decrees of their 
own society, and that cry out continually the Church, the Church, with 
as much noise, and perhaps upon the same principle, as the Ephesian 
silversmiths did for their Diana; this, I say, I desire to mind them of, 
that the gospel frequently declares that the true disciples of Christ must 
suffer persecution ; but that-the Church of Christ should persecute others, 
and force others by fire and sword to embrace her faith and doctrine, I 
could never yet find in any of the books of the Xew Testament." 



l&t THE PHILOSOPHERS. 

1732. The metaphysical doctrines of Berkeley were, doubt- 
less, considerably affected by his profoundly religious dispo- 
sition. He had witnessed with alarm the deleterious influ- 
ence which the materialistic philosophy was having upon 
religion, and endeavored to destroy its very foundations by 
impeaching the testimony of the senses upon which it rested. 
In his Principles he showed conclusively that we have no 
immediate knowledge of the material world: all that we are 
conscious of, being certain impressions or affections of the 
mind (as the impression of. form or of color) which we 
attribute to certain external objects affecting us through the 
senses, and govern our actions accordingly. But of the 
objects themselves to which we refer these impressions, we 
have no real knowledge; and to assume that they really 
possess in themselves the qualities which we attribute to 
them, as an inference from our mental impressions, even 
should such assumption be correct, is to found an argument 
on an unproved and unprovable postulate. In this way the 
materialists ware shown that they could have no knowledge 
of matter, except inferentially. from the affections of mind 
which they impeached: whereas mind is immediately con- 
scious of itself. 

It has often been said, and is" still occasionally repeated, by 
those who have not examined the argument, that Berkeley 
denied the existence of matter, which was not the case.* The 
argument of Berkeley has never been refuted, and still enters 
into the foundation of some of the most important meta- 
physical systems. 

But the first man who deserves to be called a genuine 
successor to Bacon was Robert Boyle. He was the son 
of Richard Boyle, the Earl of Cork, at whose seat. Lismore 

* Xot to misrepresent Berkeley, it must be stated that he considered its 
perception, either by some percipient creature, or by the Almighty, to be 
the real existence of matter. 



BOBEBT BOYLE. 185 

Castle, in the province of Munster, Ireland, he was born in 
the year 1627. He was educated at Eton, and afterwards at 
Geneva. He resided, at first, on his estate at Stalbridge ; 
afterward at Oxford; and, in 1668, he removed to London, 
where he resided until his death. The personal character of 
Boyle was eminently virtuous. In early youth he became a 
convert to Christianity; and his life happily illustrated the 
teachings of the gospel. He died in 1691, just one week 
after his sister, Lady Eanelagh, with whom, being a bachelor, 
he had spent the last twenty years of his life. 

Boyle devoted much of his time to the study of meta- 
physics. His works on that subject are distinguished for 
the perspicuity and good sense with which they were written, 
and show him to have had an ardent and independent love 
of truth. His greatest fame, however, is founded upon the 
arduous industry with which, during the greater part of his 
life, he studied and developed the laws of the physical 
sciences. While he was a resident at Stalbridge, when but a 
young man, he became a member of a society of learned 
men, called the Invisible College. This was the germ of the 
Eoyal Society of Great Britain, among the founders of which, 
besides Boyle, were Wilkins, "Wren, and Bathurst. This 
society, though begun before, was incorporated in the year 
1663. Following the teachings of Bacon, Boyle went into 
the vast field of nature, and labored to build up the sciences 
by the only reasonable mode — the study of her laws by ob- 
servation and experiment. His long and laborious life 
enabled him to accomplish a vast deal in this noble under- 
taking, and to produce many works on physics, optics, 
pneumatics, natural history, and medicine. What the world 
owes to him and to the Boyal Society, which he helped to 
originate, it is impossible to estimate, as it is a debt continu- 
ally increasing by new discoveries and inventions. The 
examples of him and of his co-laborers gave a new impulse 



186 THE PHILOSOPHER ; 

to original researches throughout all the physical world. 
The sciences of botany, zoology, comparative anatomy, and 
geology, all soon found most able patrons in such men as 
Bay, Lester. Grew, and others ; while astronomy "became 
_:ed above all others by the genius of the greatest of all 
natural philosophers, Sir Isaac Newtox. 

Newtoh was born at Woolsthorpe, in Lincolnshire, in 
1642. Sent at the age of twelve years to the public school 
at Grantham, like his friend Barrow, he did not then give 
any promise of what he was afterwards to become. He, 
however, soon threw off boyish idleness, and prosecuted his 
studies with great diligence. After the death of his step- 
father (his father having died a short time before he 
born), he was taken from school, at the age of fifteen ; s, 
in order to conduct the management of the farm. His mind 
had already begun to be interested in mech; 1 wl e 

he busied himself about windmills, clocks, and similar con- 
trivances, the farm was found to be going to ruin. He was 
therefore sent back to school, and finished his education at 
Cambridge. 'While at the latter place, his attention, when 
he was only eighteen years old, was directed to the study of 
mathematics, from a fancy which seized him to investigate 
the subject of judicial astrology. After taking hifi fcwc 
degrees he became a Fellow; and afterwards, in 1669, on the 
retirement of Barrow, he was elected to the Lucasian profes- 
sorship of mathematics. He had already begun that bril- 
liant career of discoveries which has made his name the 
most illustrious among men of science. The binomial 
theorem, the method of fluxions, or many a single one of his 
discoveries, was sufficient to have made him a great rep; - 
tion ; and but for the importance of tnmg the ruth, 

he might well have yielded the fame of many of his minor 
discoveries to such men as Hooke and Huyghens, who envied 
him. The theory of universal gravitation itself raised him, 



SIB ISAAC NEWTOK 187 

at once, to the highest place in philosophy. This theory was 
discovered by him while yet a student, and during a tempo- 
rary absence into the country from the university, while the 
plague was raging at Cambridge. But the calculations then 
made not bringing about a perfectly satisfactory result, with 
that extraordinary modesty and that distrust of his own 
powers which always distinguished him, he did not then 
pursue his investigations, and concealed them from the 
world. Years afterwards, he was led to resume them, and 
after the most laborious and patient trials, he arrived at his 
conclusion. Such was the greatness of the discovery, that 
just before the conclusion, when he foresaw what it would 
be, he became so much excited, that he was unable to finish 
the calculations, and had to give them to a friend to be 
completed. They were submitted to the Eoyal Society in 
1683, and published in 1687, under the name of the Prin- 
cipia, the most magnificent contribution which genius has 
ever made to science. 

In 1669 he made the discovery of the composite nature of 
white light and the differing refrangibility of the colored 
rays, and these views were made public in his Treatise on 
Optics, published in 1704. At the same time he made 
known his method of fluxions, an invention which had been 
made independently by Leibnitz, previously to this publica- 
tion. Newton's priority of invention was shown, however, 
by his use of the method in his Princijria, and by the evi- 
dence of persons to whom he had communicated his inven- 
tion as early as 1669. 

Newton continued his splendid career of discovery for 
many years. The government had heretofore done but little 
for men of science. But through the influence of Charles 
Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, he was appointed, in 
1699, to the Mastership of the Mint, with a salary of twelve 
or fifteen hundred pounds sterling. He was afterwards 



1S8 TEE PHILOSOPHERS 

elected President of the Royal Society, and in 1705 received 

the honor of knighthood. The latter years of his life were 
devoted mostly to theological studies : and he produced 
several works of a high reputation, as the '"_' 
Ancient Kingdoms, and Observations on the F :s of 

Holy Writ. He died in 1727. 

The life of Newton was characterized by all those virtu 3S 
which so well become a Christian philosopher. His celel 
ted remark, in which he compared himself with the child 
who has gathered a few pebbles on the shore of the ocean, 
was characteristic of his eminent modesty. Though nervously 
averse from controversy, he was unavoidably made to engage 
in it with many of the scholars of his time. The dispute 
with Leibnitz on the authorship of the theory of fluxions — 
a dispute which has at last been settled by assigning it to 
both — and those with Hooke. Huyghens. and others, inflicted 
the greatest pain upon his sensitive spirit. In all these dis- 
putes, he never forgot what was due in charity to his adversa- 
ries. On one occasion especially, supposing that he had 
spoken uncharitably of Locke, he wrote to him. asking his 
pardon, in a manner which showed, to use the language of 
his biographer, "that Lis mind was as noble as it was pure." 

The incessant labor with which he pursued his studies, 
and his solitary life (for he was never married), induced habits 
of a remarkable absence of mind ; so remarkable, indeed, that 
they gave rise to the suspicion, now long removed, that he 
had become insane. He would often, after rising in the 
morning, become absorbed in calculations when half- dressed. 
and so remain for hours. Among many anecdotes which 
are told of this infirmity, is that of Dr. Stukely. who. hav- 
ing called at his dwelling to see him. was shown into the 
dining-room, where he found dinner served and getting c 
After waiting for the master of the house until his patie 
was exhausted, he sat down and ate the dinner alone. T\nen 



EDUUXD BALLET. 189 

Sir Isaac came down and sat at the table, seeing the remains 
of the dinner, he rose, apologizing to the doctor for having 
forgotten that he had already dined. 

Contemporary with Newton, and second only to him as an 
astronomer, was Edmuxd Halley. He was born in Lon- 
don, in the year 1656, and the whole of his long life was 
devoted to science. He was the author of many discoveries 
and writings upon watery vapors, tides, and the variation of 
the magnetic needle. In the year 1691, he was a candidate 
for the Savilian professorship of astronomy in the University 
of Oxford, but failed to get it on account of the belief that 
some of his views on scientific subjects were inconsistent with 
Eevelation. Twelve years afterwards, having outlived this 
suspicion, he was elected to the Savilian chair of geometry, 
and received the title of Doctor of Laws. In 1719 he was 
appointed to the office of Astronomer Eoyal, in which 
position he continued until his death, in 1742. 



CHAPTEE XX. 

The Classic Age— D ry den— Pope— Prior— Parnell— Young— Gay— 
Thomson— Gray— Collins— Goldsmith— Chatterton— Cowper. 

A literatuee like that of the Eestoration could not pos- 
sibly remain long unchanged ; not only because it was 
immoral, but because it was entirely repugnant to the char- 
acter, spirit, and hereditary instincts of the people. The 
English, like all Teutonic peoples, have naturally a profound 
respect for marriage, and a deep attachment to home and the 
family; and, in the writings of this period, which but too 
faithfully represented the morals of the upper classes, these 
were the constant objects of attack and derision. Not merely 
the domestic virtues, as we have seen, but friendship, honor, 
religion, were* openly scoffed at; and the models held up for 
admiration and imitation by the most brilliant writers were 
heartless, selfish voluptuaries, in whom a light varnish of good 
manners, a graceful bow, and a gift of smart repartee, were the 
only redeeming traits. A revolt against such teachings was 
inevitable in a people naturally moral, and against such levity 
in a race naturally serious. 

The revolution of 1688, with its complete overturn in poli- 
tics, finally brought the literature of the Stuarts, as well as 
everything else associated with that unwise dynasty, into 
deep discredit ; and the patriotic sentiments kindled by the 
war with France (1689-1697) were all enlisted against it as 
deeply tinged with French ideas, though the brilliant wit of 
the Comedy held its own for years, despite the new in- 
fluences. 



WANT OF ORIGINALITY. 191 

Thus the impulses to change were negative rather than 
positive; it was brought about not by new thoughts, feelings, 
and views supplanting former ones, but simply by dissatis- 
faction and disgust. Hence the new writers had to look 
about for a style ; and nothing seemed so safe as to return to 
classic authorities, and, if possible, recover theirs. This — the 
new wine not being too strong for the old bottles — they did 
for awhile with very tolerable success; and thus arose a sort 
of second Renaissance, which, unable to seize the spirit of 
antiquity, strove to copy its forms, and, by servile imitation 
or careful correctness, has earned for itself the question- 
able title of the Classic Age. 

Why certain periods in the literary history of a nation are 
stricken with sterility of invention, is a question we need not 
discuss here; but the consequences in this period are very 
obvious. The reverence and study bestowed upon the 
ancient models brought about a desire to reproduce them in 
the vernacular; hence this is a great age of translations. 
Homer, Virgil, Horace, Juvenal, Persius, Ovid, Cicero, — in a 
word, nearly all the classic masters, were reproduced in 
English versions, by men of the first talents of the age. The 
critical spirit also inspired the idea of systematising and lay- 
ing down the principles of everything, and hence arose a 
multitude of treatises, some in prose and some in verse, of a 
didactic character. Health, Imagination, The Chase, The 
Botanic Garden, and even less inspiring themes, were 
thought fit subjects for long poems, divided, with epic 
gravity, into Books. 

The combination of this classical taste and critical instinct 
with the political and literary politics and partisanship of the 
time, produced the satire. Satires, both in prose and verse, 
had been written before ; but now the art was brought to 
perfection. The satirist went into the combat with the 
finished grace and the deadly purpose of a duellist armed 



192 THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

with the rapier. He neither laughed nor blustered, nor did 
he overwhelm his antagonist with mountains of learning, but 
sought out, one by one, his vulnerable points, his faults, his 
foibles, even his personal imperfections, and transfixed him 
with polished but envenomed sarcasm. Such was satire in 
its perfection under Dryden and Pope. 

We place Johk Dkydeist at the head of the writers of the 
Classical age, for, though his life extends into three periods, 
the Commonwealth, the Eestoration, and that which we are 
now considering, and in each he conformed his writings more 
or less to the popular taste, yet the entire bent of his genius 
was toward classicism, and he contributed, more than any 
other single writer, to give that direction to English litera- 
ture. His learning, vigor of intellect, acute and sustained 
powers of reasoning, have given him an influence in the 
world of letters which has extended to our own time. In his 
hands the ten-syllable (or heroic) couplet acquired a nerve 
and energy which has ever since made it the favorite measure 
for the expression of grave or majestic thought, though our 
latest writers seem desirous to escape from its rigid cadences 
to the freer verse of the Elizabethan age. 

John Dryden was the son of Erasmus Dryden, of a good 
family, and was born at Aldwinkle, near Oundle, in the year 
1631. He was a pupil of the celebrated Doctor Busby, the 
head-master of Westminster school, of whom it was said that 
he produced the greatest number of distinguished scholars 
that ever adorned any age or nation. Dryden completed his 
education at Cambridge. He was at first a partisan of Par- 
liament, and after the death of Cromwell published a small 
poem to his honor. On the accession of Charles II., he was 
one of the first to hail his Eestoration, which he celebrated 
in a poem entitled Astraea Redux, and was rewarded for his 
change of opinion by being elevated (in 1668) to the post of 
Poet-Laureate. 



JOHN DBYDEN. 193 

The first years of Dryden's literary life were given to writing 
for the stage. In his dramatic works are to be found not 
only the gross indecencies which characterized all the litera- 
ture of the court, but other innovations introduced by 
Charles and his courtiers. That monarch, during his exile, 
had become thoroughly imbued with admiration of the French 
drama; and henceforth French ideas were to become the 
fashion in literary circles. What the French did from the 
lack of rhythm and melody in their language, the English, 
with one of the richest of all modern tongues, imitated in 
compliance with the tastes of the king, and began to intro- 
duce rhyme into tragedy. Lord Orrery was the first to begin 
this practice, so hurtful to our dramatic literature. Dry den, 
with that servility which his poverty always seemed to him 
to render necessary and to justify, adopted, against his judg- 
ment, the fashion, and wrote not only for fame, but for 
bread. Of this sort were The Conquest of Granada, and 
The Indian Emperor. In the end, however, he abandoned 
the use of rhyme in his tragedies, being forced, in spite of 
his servility, to follow the suggestions of his genius, and his 
later dramas, written in blank verse, rank much higher than 
the first. He wrote a large number of plays, tragedies, and 
comedies; but while some of the most excellent versification 
in the English language is to be found in the former, they 
are, notwithstanding, far inferior in dramatic merit to those 
of the Elizabethan age. Following, in their composition, the 
erroneous tastes of the times, he, of course, signally failed in 
the faithful representation of character. In his comedies, 
while his characters are truer to nature than those in his 
tragedies, they are, unfortunately, not merely vicious, but 
detestable and disgusting. He was wise enough to know 
that his dramatic talent was small, and he attempted to 
compensate this defect by every art that he could employ : as 
in his tragedies, by the elegance of versification, and, in his 

9 



194 THE CLASSIC AGE. TEE POETS 

comedies, not only by pandering to the general fondness for 
indecencies, but by complicated intrigue and unlooked-for 
disclosures. Of his many dramas very few are now read. 
All for Love, The Spanish Friar, and Don Sebastian are the 
best. 

In his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, Dryden shows how care- 
fully he had striven, by study and reflection, to make up for 
the want of original genius ; he explains how tragedies 
ought to be written, how a part should be constructed, acts 
and scenes arranged, and in what language the personages 
should express themselves. This is the true spirit of the 
Classic Age; everything weighed, considered, proportioned 
— a rule for everything, and nothing without a reason, 
which were the last things the Elizabethan dramatists 
(except Jonson) could have given. Restrictions such as 
these are fatal to dramatic genius, which must express pas- 
sion as it feels it. His contemporaries saw his weakness, and 
laughed at him under the name of "Bayes" (an allusion 
to his laureate-ship), with his " Beceipt for composing an 
Epick Poem," in the Duke of Buckingham's comedy of 
The Rehearsal. Dryden, whose powers as a satirist have 
rarely been equalled, retorted with crushing effect in Absa- 
lom and Achitophel, probably the severest satire in the lan- 
guage, and in Mac Flecnoe, directed against the poet Shad- 
well, who is now chiefly remembered as the subject of this 
famous castigation. 

Absalom and Achitophel was aimed at the Earl of Shaftes- 
bury, who is the wily, intriguing counsellor of the king, im- 
personated as David. Absalom, the rebellious son, is the 
Duke of Monmouth, natural son of Charles II., whose futile 
rebellion brought his head to the block in the following 
reign. The Duke of Buckingham in this satire bears the 
name of Zimri, and is thus satirised : 



SATIRES, TRANSLATIONS, FABLES. 195 

A man so various that he seemed to be 
Not one, but all mankind's epitome: 
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong, 
Was everything by starts, and nothing long ; 
But in the course of one revolving moon, 
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon ; 
Then, all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking, 
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking. 
Blest madman ! who could every hour employ 
With something new to wish, or to enjoy. 
Railing and praising were his usual themes, 
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes. . , , 
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art ; 
Nothing went unrewarded but desert ; 
Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late, 
He had his jest, and they had his estate. 
He laughed himself from court ; then sought relief 
In forming parties, but could ne'er be chief. . . . 
Thus w r icked but in will, of means -bereft, 
He left not faction, but of that was left. 

The duke was so enraged at this stinging satire, that, unable 
to cope in words with the antagonist whom he had provoked, 
he resorted to the base expedient of hiring ruffians to maltreat 
the poet, who was severely beaten. The last of Dryden's poet- 
ical labors were given to Translations, to Fables, and to Odes. 
He translated Juvenal and Persius ; but his greatest work of 
this kind was the ^Eneid. While this was in progress, pub- 
lic expectation was excited to a high degree, nor was it dis- 
appointed at the completion of the work. It w T as far supe- 
rior to anything of its kind which had preceded it in any 
language : and its inferiority to Pope's Iliad, the only version 
to which it is inferior, is to be attributed to the greater diffi- 
culties which the older poet had to encounter. 

The Fables are founded upon the tales of Boccaccio and 
Chaucer. They contain more of his best passages than any 
other of his poems. Of the Odes, the most celebrated is that 
on St. Cecilia's Day, considered by some the most beautiful in 
the language. Among his other poems, Annus Mirabilis, 



196 THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

and the Hind and Panther, especially the latter, have been 
~ery much praised. Drydem on the accession of James II., 
had become a Eoman Catholic ; and the latter poem was 
written in support of that Church, represented by the Hind, 
the Protestant Church being represented by the Panther. 
Notwithstanding the singularity of the fable, this is consid- 
ered one of his ablest productions. He possessed the power 
of argumentation to an eminent degree, and delighted to 
exhibit it in his poetry. Mr. Hallam says of the reasoning 
in this poem, " I do not know that the main argument of the 
Pioman Church could be better stated." 

The following noble passage is from this poem, and breathes 
a fervent spirit of devotion : 

But, gracious God, how well dost Thou provide 

For erring judgments an unerring guide ! 

Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, 

A blaze of glory that forbids the sight. 

O teach me to believe Thee thus concealed, 

And search no further than Thyself revealed ; 

But Her alone for my Director take, 

Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake ! 

My thoughtless youth was wingtd with vain desires ; 

My manhood, long misled by wandering fires, 

Follow' d false lights, and when their glimpse was gone, 

My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. 

Such was I ; such by nature still I am ; 

Be Thine the glory, and be mine the shame t 

Dryden is also highly distinguished as a prose-writer. He 
is the first critic in the language who deserves to have that 
name : because he is the first who ever determined the merits 
of composition according to the true principles of good 
writing. The Essay on Dramatic Poetry, the Defense of 
this Essay, the Origin and Progress of Satire, The Parallel 
of Poetry a, id Painting, and the Life of Plutarch, are his 
principal prose works. 

The perseverance with which he pursued the career of let- 



ALEXANDER POPE. 197 

ters enabled him, after many years, to rise to the head of the 
wits of his day, and established him in a sort of literary dic- 
tatorship. Such was the small pecuniary value then set upon 
literature, that he always remained very poor. The neces- 
sity of getting bread, while it forced him not only to consult 
the tastes of the age, whether his judgment approved them 
or not, but also to pay the most abject servility to every 
source of patronage, compelled him to write with a rapidity 
which renders it wonderful that there are not to be found 
more blemishes in his productions. But he had the very 
quickest conception, and was able to express it at once, and 
in the best terms which the language afforded. 

Dryden was a married man ; but his conjugal relations 
were far from being happy, and added to the troubles which 
poverty and his literary quarrels brought upon him. He has 
been charged with having abandoned Protestantism for 
Eomanism from selfish motives. But though he was in many 
respects a time-server, yet when we remember that he brought 
up his children in the Roman faith, and that he persevered in 
it himself (though that perseverance cost him the loss of his 
place as Poet-Laureate) after the accession of William and 
Mary, and until his death, he ought to be acquitted of this 
last charge. He lived to the full age of man, and died in 1701. 
Such was his poverty, that his body lay without burial until 
a sum of money sufficient for this purpose was raised by 
subscription. 

If to the name of Dryden we link that of a poet wlfo lived 
a whole generation later, it is because the younger man was 
the professed scholar of the older ; because the second com- 
pleted what the first had begun, and because there is no name 
of eminence in poetry that can be placed between the two. 
Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. When he 
was twelve years old, his father removed to Binfield, in Wind- 
sor E)rest. The youth, who was of a frail body and delicate 



10 > THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

constitution— he was somewhat deformed in person — was 

voraciously addicted tc readings and showed decided talent 

in writing verses, in which his father encouraged him. It is 

that a literary friend who advised and fostered his 

precocious genius, told him that there was but one distinc- 
tion yet unattained by any poet, that of perfect tess ; 
ana this excellence he resolved to make his own. He chose 
Dryden for his model, and for his form the ten-syllable, or 
heroic couplet, which he brought to the highest perfection of 
smoothness, terseness, and point, which admirably suited his 
genius. At the age of sixreen he wrote his Pastorals, which 
at once gave a promise of his future renown, though they 
were as Servile imitations of Virgil as Virgil's are of Theocri- 
tus. In this feature he is typical of his whole school; which 
rarely exhibits richness e: imacuuatiu: :r cut ;:— :: u:; - 
si tin hut supplies these deficiencies by elegance and polish, 
and epigrammatic diction. Naturally, he turned his atten- 
tion to criticism, and in 1 Til appeared his Essay on that 
subject, which showed much learning, refined taste, and nice 
discrimination. 

His personal disadvantages end irritable temper laid him 
open to satire at a tinie when literary jealousies and quarrels 
Were peculiarly rauccrous and fierce : and he was not long in 
showing the world that in the use of hut weapon he was 
more than a match for all opponents. His pellucid style, his 
: :Imirable mastery :: expression, and the quick flash of his 
couple *s. like the instantaneous stab of a rapier, armed him 
as no satiris: was ever armed before : nor has any since been 
able to equal him. iu his way. His first attack was upon 
John Dennis, a professed critic, who lorded it :~:^zl": writers 
of his time in a way that Pope could not brook. Dennis, 
who was a man of ferocious temper, became at once Pope's 
incplacafle enemy: auf thus commenced the series of bitter 
literacy ;.ua:r-ls in which Pope's life was spent. 



TEE BAPE OF THE LOCK. 199 

Many of his most celebrated productions, however, had no 
connection with the literary feuds of the day. Among these 
The Rape of the Lock, a mock-heroic poem in five cantos — on 
the occasion of a lock of hair having been stolen from one 
of the beauties of the court by a bold admirer — shows a 
sprightly fancy, and will always be read with pleasure for the 
elegance of its language. 

Belinda, the heroine, is thus described ; 

Fair nymphs and well-dressed youths around her shone, 

But every eye was fixed on her alone. 

On her white breast a sparkling cross she wore, 

Which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore. 

Her lively looks a sprightly mind disclose, 

Quick as her eyes, and as unfix' d as those : 

Favors to none, to all she smiles extends ; 

Oft she rejects, but never once offends. 

Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, 

And, like the sun, they shine on all alike. 

Yet graceful ease, and sweetness void of pride, 

Might hide her faults, if belles had faults to hide ; 

If to her share some female errors fall, 

Look on her face, and you'll forget them all. 

The guardian sylphs, who surround the lady, are depicted 
thus: 

Some to the sun their insect- wings unfold, 
Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold ; 
Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 
Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light; 
Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, 
Thin, glittering textures of the filmy dew, 
Dipt in the richest tinctures of the skies, 
Where light disports in ever-mingling dyes ; 
While every beam new transient colours flings, 
Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings. 

Pope had been introduced by Steele to Addison, at that 
time at the head of the literary world, and the intimacy for 
awhile was most cordial. But Addison was by nature cool and 



200 THE CLASSIC AGE. TEE POETS. 

proud; and Pope, sensitive and touchy, suspected that his 
friend was jealous of his talents and his rising reputation ; 
and thus commenced a misunderstanding which at last 
ripened into hostility, and Pope satirised his former friend 
in some of the severest lines ever written, which he never 
forgave. 

The celebrated passage in the Prologue is the perfection of 
this kind of satire: the greatest care has been taken with 
every line and every word, to give it the utmost polish and 
keenness ; and its apparent moderation makes it only the 
more severe. It runs as follows : 

Peace to all such ! But were there one whose fires 
True genius kindles and fair fame inspires ; 
Blest with each talent and each art to please, 
And born to write, converse, and live with ease ; 
Should such a man, too fond to rule alone, 
Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne, 
View him with scornful, yet with jealous eyes, 
And hate for arts that caused himself to rise ; 
Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, 
And, Without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; 
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, 
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike ; 
Alike reserved to blame or to commend, 
A timorous foe and a suspicious friend ; 
Dreading e'en fools, by flatterers besieged, 
And so obliging, that he ne'er obliged ; 
Like Goto, give his little senate laws, 
And sit attentive to his own applause, 
While wits and Templars every sentence raise, 
And wonder with a foolish face of praise: 
Who but must laugh, if such a man there be ? — 
Who would not weep, if Atticus were he ? 

The Essay on Criticism was soon followed by the Epistle 
of Eloisa to Abelard, and Windsor Forest. He had now 
acquired fame, but had not amassed money. The latter he 
desired, partly on his own account and partly for the sake 



THE ILIAD— THE DUNCIAD. 201 

of his parents, T\ho had nearly spent their estate at Binfield. 
To this end he issued, in 1713, proposals to print by sub- 
scription a version of the Iliad. The project was successful. 
Public expectation was high, and it was not disappointed, 
when, in 1720, the version was published. It is admitted to 
be, in some respects, the finest translation which has ever 
been made in any language. He realised from the sale of it 
something over five thousand pounds. He had already, in 
prospect of its success, purchased the house at Twickenham, 
to which he removed with his parents, whom he always 
treated with the most tender and constant piety. 

The success of the Iliad raised him many enemies. Ad- 
dison is accused by Johnson of being sorely hurt by it, and 
of endeavoring to decry it by avowing his preference for the 
translation which, professing to be the work of Tickell, was 
composed by himself. 

In 1728 appeared the Dunciad, one of the severest, and, at 
the same time, one of the grossest of satires ; in which his 
terrible sarcasm was poured upon all his enemies. In 
several instances, as in the case of Aaron Hill and Theobald 
(who had excited his wrath by exposing his ignorance of 
Shakespeare), this sarcasm was wholly unjustifiable, and 
exhibited an uncommon want of feeling. The crime against 
Hill was yet further heightened by equivocation. This 
bitisg satire had the effect which it was designed to produce. 
It inflicted the keenest anguish upon those at whom it was 
aimed, as well his enemies as innocent persons, some of 
whom were greatly injured in reputation and even in their 
business. 

After the works above mentioned appeared his Moral 
Essays, his Imitations of Horace, and his Essay on Man. 
The latter has always been one of Pope's most celebrated 
productions, though it owes this distinction more to its 
elegant sty e and polished versification, the multitude of 

9* 



202 TEE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

pregnant remarks, of striking antitheses, and terse expres- 
sions of general truths, than to any great philosophical or 
moral excellence. "While it can scarcely be called a poem at 
all, in the proper sense of the word, no work of equal size 
has furnished so many pointed and familiar quotations. 
The Essay is dedicated to Lord Bolingbroke, who furnished 
the ethical principles and views which Pope versified, appa- 
rently without fully comprehending their bearings, on which 
account the poet was unjustly charged with holding infidel 
views. 

Never was there a man more skillful in the management 
of a literary quarrel than Pope. His long experience in 
such matters made him a strategist in everything; so much 
so, indeed, that one of his female acquaintances once said 
of him that he used stratagem even in drinking his tea. 
One of the most successful of his tricks was the one in 
which, with the design of having his own letters published 
by another than himself, he managed to have that business 
done by Curll, the printer, who thought that he had obtained 
them surreptitiously, and who was prosecuted for it by the 
author. Very little to his credit, also, is his quarrel with 
Lady Mary Wortley Montague. This lady, then in the blaze 
of her wit and beauty, fascinated the poet, who ventured to 
address her. His addresses were rejected, with some con- 
temptuous allusion, it is believed, to his personal defects and 
infirmities. Pope avenged himself by the most rancorous, 
and even indecent satire; his rage leading him to such 
extremes that disgust at the writer is the chief impression 
produced upon the reader. 

Pope was now at the head of the literary men of the day, 
and was courted by the great with assiduous attention. His 
fame, his bad health, and his vanity, made him the most ex- 
acting of giests. He died in 1744, in the faith (Eoman 
Catholic) ir which he had lived, expressing full confidence 



THE POETRY OF POPE. 203 

in a future state. Bolingbroke, who was his friend in life, 
and who was left one of his literary executors, was astounded 
to find, after his death, that he had printed his pamphlet, en- 
titled Tlte Patriot King, which he had requested him to 
suppress. The indignant statesman revenged himself upon 
him by hiring a writer of the day to traduce his memory. 

We may close our notice of Pope with the following ex- 
tract from the comparison, by Dr. Johnson, between him 
and Dryden, to whom he had assigned the higher place : " And 
even of Dryden, it must be said that if he has brighter para- 
graphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances 
were always hasty, either excited by some external occasion 
or extorted by domestic necessity ; he composed without 
consideration, and published without correction. What his 
mind could supply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all 
that lie sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution 
of Pope enabled him to condense his statements, to multiply 
his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce 
or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, 
are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dry- 
den's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more 
regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, 
and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent 
astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight/' 

In Pope the poetry of the Classical period reaches its high- 
est development. Style and form were everything with these 
writers, and in cultivating the graces of style and the perfec- 
tion of form, none equalled Pope. He was the most careful 
of writers and the most fastidious, every verse being elabo- 
rately polished and pointed, and every word selected for its 
place with sedulous care. Hence his great popularity and 
influence down to our own time, and the justice of the ver- 
dict which allots him a place among the most distinguished 
names in English literature. 



204 THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

But if we take a higher view of poetry — if we regard its 
true object to be the inspiring of noble emotion, if we con- 
sider richness of imagination, elevation of thought, purity 
and tenderness of feeling, wide and deep sympathy with hu- 
manity, as essential elements, we cannot assign Pope a high 
position among poets. His imagination never soars to ideal 
heights, his morality is trite, his fancies and language often 
gross, his sentiments commonplace or affected; he is narrow 
in his sympathies, and bitter in his hate. 

Pope was followed, and more or less closely imitated, by a 
number of minor poets, whom we must pass with brief 
notice. Matthew Prior was born in 1664, and at an early 
age gave proofs of genius. A fortunate incident drew the at- 
tention of the Earl of Dorset to the youth's talent, upon 
which that nobleman interested himself in him, and sent him 
to Cambridge University, where he was admitted to a Fel- 
lowship. 

His poem of The Country Mouse and City Mouse, written 
in ridicule of Dryden's Hind and Panther, brought him into 
public notice, and the Whig party, then in power, helped 
him to a diplomatic career, and made him Under Secretary 
of State. He, however, deserted his party on their fall from 
power, and on their regaining office, in 1714, they punished 
him for it by an indictment for high treason (grounded upon 
some alleged misfeasance in his diplomatic service), and he 
was imprisoned for two years, and discharged without a trial. 
He died in 1721, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. 

Prior's principal poems are Alma, or the Progress of the 
Mind, a humorous poem in Hudibrastic verse; Solomon, a 
serious poem in heroic couplets, founded on the book of 
Eccle-siastes. and Henry and Emma, an elaboration of the 
old ballad of The Xut-lrown Maid. Priors verse is usually 
easy and graceful, and often witty, though it frequently of- 
fends against good taste, and sometimes against morality. 



PABNELL— TO UNG— GA Y— THOMSON. 2 05 

Thomas Par^ell, born in 1679, produced several agree- 
able pieces, pure in morality and pleasing in expression, of 
which The Hermit, a parable founded on a ."Rabbinical fable, 
and intended to illustrate the mysterious workings of Provi- ' 
dence, still retains popularity. 

Edward You:n"G was born near Winchester, in 1681. In 
1719, he produced his tragedy of Busiris, and in 1731, his 
Revenge. These, with his satires, constitute his principal 
works, excepting his only celebrated one, the Night Thoughts. 
This poem was founded upon scenes in his own domestic life, 
the death of members of his family. It is religious, gloomy, 
and monotonous, turning entirely upon the shortness and 
uncertainty of life, the certainty of death, and the necessity 
of preparation for a future state; subjects certainly well 
worthy of solemn meditation, and very appropriate themes 
for a sermon or a hymn, but entirely unsuited to be the 
material of a long poem. In truth, the Night Thoughts 
are simply a series of rather eloquent sermons in blank verse, 
containing some passages of considerable beauty, and some 
which are really sublime. Like many a poet before him, 
Young was very eager to obtain political promotion, and 
bore his disappointments in that respect with little forti- 
tude. He died at a very advanced age in 1765. 

Johx Gay, born in 1686, a writer of great vivacity, obtained 
a great reputation by his Fables, and The Beggar's Opera, a 
witty burlesque on the Italian opera, then comparatively a 
novelty. The personages of this burlesque were thieves, foot- 
pads, and their associates. It created much sensation at the 
time, and, notwithstanding the repulsiveness of the charac- 
ters and much of the language, drew crowded houses, partly 
on account of the beautiful old English melodies introduced 
in the music. 

James Thomson was born in 1700, at Ed nam. He began 
his education at Jedburg (celebrated in his Autumn), and 



206 THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS 

completed it at Edinburgh. His first thoughts were for the 

church, but he afterwards changed his plans, and removed 
to London for the purpose of pursuing the career of letters. 
His first poem was Autumn, which he dedicated to Sir 
Spenser Compton. and received in return a present of twenty 
guineas. The other parts of the Seasons — Winter, Spring, 
and Summer — subsequently appeared in the order in which 
they are mentioned. In 1T2T. his tragedy of Sophonisia 
came out, and in 1745, that of Tancred and Sigismunda. 
The latter is far the better of the two, though not itself to 
be compared with the great tragedies of our language. His 
last poem was the Castle of Indolence. 

Thomson came to London very poor ; but his genial humor, 
his excellent understanding, and his irreproachable character 
procured him many friends among the upper classes, and he 
was enabled to live at ease. This was the more desirable to 
him, as he was distinguished for his indolence, and his love 
of good cheer. He died in 1748. Of his poems the Seasons 
are the most celebrated and the best. Notwithstanding their 
want of metho'd, they have always pleased every class of 
readers. Every common object alluded to in them is treated 
in a way which showed that he was a true poet, who sees, 
even in common things, beauties and marvels, and invests 
trite, familiar, and homely scenes with new and rare charms. 

Thoxas Gray, born in IT 16, was a very careful writer, 
who produced little, but his productions are distinguished 
by high finish and graceful expression. His Odes, some of 
which are in irregular measures (which was then considered 
the way to imitate Pindar), and his Elegy in a Country 
Churchyard, still charm us by the justness of the thoughts, 
and the happy expression of feelings common to all. Gray 
has also won a classic reputation by his letters to various 
friends, which for ease, grace, and vivacity are not surpassed 
in anv language. 



COLLINS— CHA TTEBTOK 207 

A poet of a niucli higher order of genius than any of these 
was William Collins, born 1720. His short and unhappy 
life prevented the development of extraordinary natural 
powers. Idealism, nearly extinct in this period, seemed to 
be about to revive in him. His Ode entitled The Passions, 
the poem by which he is remembered, is admitted to have no 
superior in its kind in English. Impracticable, irresolute, 
and poor, though of unimpeached character, he at last be- 
came a lunatic, and died in 1756, in the thirty-sixth year of 
his age. 

Oliver Goldsmith, who is entitled to a distinguished 
place here for his beautiful poems The Traveller and The 
Deserted Village, will be spoken of under the novelists, and 
Dr. Samuel Johxsox, whose London, Vanity of Human 
Wishes, and other essays in verse were much admired in his 
;ime, under the essayists. 

One of the most remarkable poets of this period, remarkable 
alike for his extraordinary and precocious genius, perverted 
judgment, and melancholy fate, was Thomas Chattertox. 

Chatterton was born in Bristol in 1752, of humble parents. 
While a mere child, he showed an eager desire for learning, 
and a precocious thirst for fame; and at eight years he had 
read all the books to which he could get access. He was 
sent to a charity-school, but soon became disgusted with the 
teaching, which was of an elementary kind, and devoted all 
his leisure hours to reading and poetical composition. 

In the house in which he lived there was, in an old lum- 
ber-room, a great quantity of ancient manuscripts on parch- 
ment, which had formerly been kept in the church. These 
Chatterton found, and spent much time in examining them. 
The publication of Macpherson's Ossian in 1760, and of 
Bishop Percy's Relics in 1765, had drawn the public atten- 
tion to the ancient romantic poetry, and the idea occurred to 
young Chatterton to pretend that he had found a treasure of 



208 THE CLASSIC AGE. TEE POETS. 

curious mediaeval poems and other documents. His first 
experiments, a pretended pedigree drawn up for a friend, 

and a bit of antique chronicle, published in a Bristol news- 
paper, having succeeded, he was emboldened to more daring- 
attempts. 

He pretended to have discovered a complete tragedy, and 
other curious and beautiful poems, the composition of one 
Rowley; a monk of Bristol, who lived about the middle of the 
loth century. Specimens of these papers he sent to Horace 
Walpole, asking assistance to publish them. Walpole was 
deceived at first, and answered very courteously, but on being- 
convinced by better philologists that the whole was a forgery 
he abruptly closed the correspondence, to Chatterton ? s intense 
chagrin and disappointment. 

He now threw up his profession — he had been articled as 
an attorney's apprentice or clerk — and went to London, 
expecting to earn wealth and fame by the pursuit of litera- 
ture. From this time forth, his brief life was a continued 
struggle with disappointment, want, and misery. He wrote 
for the publishers and for the papers, but was wretchedly un- 
derpaid To keep off starvation he even descended to political 
squibs and pasquinade. Yet his pride would not allow him 
to confess his wretched condition, and he continually reported 
to his mother and sister that he was doing well, that he was 
moving in influential society and becoming famous; and to 
confirm his statements sent them little presents, poems and 
other trinkets, to purchase which he must have literally 
denied himself bread. He seems to have been absolutely 
without a friend. Even the wretched pittance of some 
six or seven dollars a month, doled out to him by the 
publishers for whom he drudged, was not punctually paid. 
To the pangs of starvation was added the keener anguish of 
disappointment and baffled pride. His mind failed under 
the protracted misery, and on the 24th of August, IT TO, 



THE "ROWLEY" POEXS. 209 

before he was eighteen years old, he poisoned himself with 
arsenic. The coroner's jury brought in a verdict of insanity, 
and he was buried among paupers. The annals of literature 
contain no sadder page than that which records the brief 
career of the unhappy Chatterton. 

Though Chatterton wrote a number of pieces in modern 
language, none of them exhibit the genius displayed in the 
'• Eowley " poems. In these we find an exuberant richness 
of fancy, dramatic force, bold and often splendid figurative 
diction, and touches of deep and genuine pathos. It is 
greatly to be regretted that he was so unwise as to attempt a 
deception which, while it darkened his reputation, rendered 
necessary a form of language which is almost unintelligible 
to the ordinary reader. 

It is not at all remarkable that the spuriousness of the 
poems was soon detected; but rather surprising that any 
one with pretensions to scholarship should have been for a 
moment deceived by them. While he had provided himself 
with a glossary of obsolete words, he took no care that they 
should all belong to the age to which he assigned the poems; 
nor did he at all understand the grammar or construction 
of the antique language he undertook to use, and thus fell 
into innumerable errors. The ornamental and rhetorical 
style, the flowing and harmonious verse, and even the 
metrical forms, are those of a modern age. Chatterton's 
system seems to have been to compose the poem in modern 
language, and then antiquate it by the simple process of 
substituting obsolete words and spelling. In proof of this 
we have only to reverse the process, and we obtain, without 
any change of construction, a poem in modern language. 
In this way we have modernised the following extract from 
the minstrel's song in JElla : 

" O sing unto rny roundelay, 
O drop the briny tear with me, 



210 THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

Dance no more on holiday, 
Like a running river be ! — 

My love is dead, gone to his death-bed, 
All under the willow-tree. 

" Black his hair as the winter night, 

White his hue as the summer snow,* 
Bed his face as the morning light ; 
Cold he lies in the grave below ! 

My love is dead, gone to his death-bed, 
All under the willow-tree. 

" Sweet his tongue as the thrush's note, 

Quick in dance as thought can be, 
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout : — 
O he lies by the willow- tree ! 

My love is dead, gone to his death-bed, 
All under the willow- tree. 

" Bee ! the white moon shines on high : 

Whiter is my true-love's shroud ; 
Whiter than the morning sky, 
Whiter than the evening cloud. 

My love is dead, gone to his death-bed, 
All under the willow-tree. 

The poet with whom we shall close this period, forms the 
link of connection between it and the following, to which 
he more than half belongs. Already a taste for nature had 
been revived, and we find descriptions of natural scenery and 
scenes of simple life the favorite topics of Parnell, Shen- 
stone, Thomson, and especially Goldsmith. But their modes 
of thought and expression were still regulated by approved 
models, and systematized in the fashion of the age. A poet 
now appeared who broke through these conventional fetters, 
and aimed at naturalness in style as well as in thought. 

* Probably the blossoms which fall like snow-flakes. We have in 
this stanza an illustration of what was said above about modern metrical 
forms. The glyconic verse, such as " Black his hair as the winter night/' 
was never used in English poetry until modern times. 



WILLIAM COWPER. 211 

True, his audacity was not great, nor were his innovations 
very daring, but the rupture with classicism was begun. 

This poet was William Cowper, born in 1731. His lot 
was a strange one. Of a good family, and in comfortable 
circumstances, with numerous friends, and living a peaceful, 
rural life, he was yet one of the most unhappy of men. 
Profoundly religious, gentle in disposition, blameless in life, 
he believed himself destined to eternal perdition, and became 
a despairing maniac. His reason was not always over- 
clouded, but from this terrible monomania he could never 
free himself, and one of the best and most pious of men died 
without hope of salvation. 

His most popular work is The Task, a poem which took 
its name from the fact that it was set him as a task by his 
friend, Lady Austen. He asked for a subject, and she sug- 
gested "the sofa," with which theme the poem commences. 
Trom subject to subject he roams, as fancy leads him, now 
touching it with delicate fancy, and now turning to graver 
themes. All his poems are replete with grace and tender- 
ness, though never rising to any great elevation of thought 
or imagination; all are colored with sincere and kindly 
piety, and but for a few passages, none would suspect the 
terrible mental affliction of the poet, Cowper had also 
much vivacity and humor, as is shown by many passages in 
the Task, and especially in his ludicrous ballad of John 
Gilpin, which is still a universal favorite. 

Cowper also published a translation of the Iliad and 
Odyssey, intended to present the great Greek epics in a form 
more faithful to the original than the epigrammatic couplets 
and conventional phrases of Pope; but he was not qualified, 
except in learning, for the undertaking, and his version has 
never been much admired. Cowper died in 1800. 

His most pathetic piece is probably the Lines on Receiving 
Ids Mother's Picture, of which we can only give an extract: 



212 THE CLASSIC AGE. THE POETS. 

11 O that those lips had language ! Life has passed 
With me but roughly since I heard thee last. 
Those lips are thine ; thy own sweet smile I see, 
The same that, oft in childhood solaced me : 
Voice only fails ; else how distinct they say, 
" Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away !" 
The meek intelligence of those clear eyes — 
Blest be the art that can immortalise, 
The art that baffles Time's gigantic claim 
To quench it — here shines on me still the same. 
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear, 

welcome guest, though unexpected here ! 
Who bid'st me honor with an artless song, 
Affectionate, a mother lost so long. 

1 will obey ; not willingly alone, 

But gladly, as the precept were her own ; 
And, while that face renews my filial grief, 
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief, 
Shall steep me in Elysian reverie, 
A momentary dream that thou art she. 



And now, farewell. Time unrevoked has run 
His wonted course ; yet what I wished is done. 
By, contemplation's help, not sought in vain, 
I seem to have lived my childhood o'er again ; 
To have renewed the joys that once were mine, 
Without the sin of violating thine ; 
And, while the wiugs of fancy still are free, 
And I can view this mimic show of thee, 
Time has but half succeeded in his theft — 
Thyself removed, thy power to soothe me left." 

OTHER POETS OF THIS PERIOD. 

BOKST. DIED. 

Ambrose Phillips Pastorals, etc 1675 1749 

Thomas Tickell Translations, etc 1686 1740 

John Dyer Descriptive Poems 1698 1758 

Robert Blair Religious ! 1699. . . .1746 

William Shenstone Rural Poems 1714 1763 

Mark Akenside Didactic Poems 1721 1770 

Joseph Warton Odes, etc 1722. . . .1800 

Erasmus Darwin .Descriptive Poems 1731 1802 

William Falconer Descriptive Poems 1732 1709 



CHAPTEK XXL 

The Essayists : Temple— Bentley — Addison— Steele— Johnson. 

A species of writing had arisen in the age of Elizabeth, 
which, from small beginnings, was destined to become one 
of the most important branches of our literature. This was 
the Essay. The term was adopted from the French. Bacon 
was the first to employ it, and applied it to the small collec- 
tion of his own which now goes by that name, and which, it 
is thought, was suggested by those of Montaigne. In the 
dedication of them to the Prince of Wales, he styles them 
" certain brief notes set down rather significantly than curi- 
ously, which I have called Essays. The word is late, but the 
thing is ancient; for Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius, if you 
mark them well, are but Essays; that is, dispersed medita- 
tions." 

A distinguished writer of essays of this kind was Sir 
William Temple. He was the son of Sir John Temple; 
was born in London, in 1628, and educated at Cambridge, 
though he left that university without taking his degree. 
He acted a leading part in the politics of his time, but spent 
the last twenty years of his life at his country-seat in Surrey, 
where he died, in the year 1700. Ten years before his final 
retirement into the country, during the temporary minority 
of his party, he wrote his Account of the United Provinces, 
and his Essay on Government. The former is much the 
superior of the two. His most celebrated work is his Miscel- 
lanies, written mostly during the- latter part of his life. Of 



214 THE ESSAYISTS. 

the most popular is the Essay The 

writings of no man were ever a better index of personal 
aeter than are chose of Temple. He wrote in an easy 
and trowing style, sometimes negligent, and often splendid; 
just such as an experienced courtier might be expected to 
employ. Considering the style rather than the matter of ids 
essays, he ranks, among his con temporaries next to Drydeii; 
though, both in knowledge and the power of reasoning, he 
is inferior to Several others. 

Immeasurably above Temple in those latter qualities, and, 
as a classical critic, the greatest man whom England has ever 
produced, was Eichaed Bextley. He was I :>rn at Oulton, 
near Wakefield, in Yorkshire, in 1*3*31. and : I ; Cam- 

bridge, where he afterwards became Begins Profess :r <. : 
Divinity: a position which he continued to hold for many 
years, amid contests which showed him to be one of the 
ablest and most determined of litigants. He hah hug 
studied the literature of the ancients, wit" : tame 

as familiar, at least, as any other man hi Europe. His first 
publication was the EpistU to Witt, on the works of 
ancient dramatists: a work which established him at once 
as the first classical scholar in England. Some t dons 

to this, a controversy had sprung up iu France on the com- 
parative merits of the ancients and the moderns. By 
advocates of the latter. Balzac was pronounced superior to 
Cicero, while Chrneille was made to rival the gre; 
poets of Greece. In this useless controversy. Sir William 
Temple, whose learning was su:it:irutly ..::ul::ry t; uuh.u- :: 
interesting to him. took a part, and gave in his adherence to 
the cause of the ancients. In his essay he had taken occasion 
to cite, as examples of the superiority of ancient literature, 
the Fables of JEsop. and the letters which had heretofore 
I ten urkversaky " how .1 t: have been written by Phahuns. a 
king of Sicily, who lived in the sixth Century before Christ 



RICHARD BENTLEY. 215 

Bentley, who had travelled over the whole ground of classical 
learning, had said that both these works were spurious, and 
agreed to furnish the proof of it to the Bev. William Wotton, 
a clergyman of the Church of England, who was then en- 
gaged in this controversy. He did so in a letter to TVotton. 
This was answered by Charles Boyle, of Oxford, in an essay 
remarkable for its wit and satire. Boyle was assisted by 
Atterbury, Aldrich, and King. Pope and Swift lent their 
encouragement also; while all the students at Christ Church 
College were upon his side and against the great critic of 
Cambridge. Alone, Bentley encountered them all. His iras- 
cible temper was aroused by the satire of Boyle and the general 
opinion that he had been defeated. He was so far superior 
to all of them, that none knew how great he was. He replied, 
after careful preparation, and brought out the Dissertation 
on the Letters of Phalaris. It was triumphant ; forever 
settled the dispute in his favor, and not only established the 
fact that the letters, instead of having been written by 
Phalaris, were the production of a sophist of a much later 
date, but displayed the author's prodigious learning in a 
multitude of critical observations on other classical writers. 

Bentley afterwards published numerous critical works on 
the ancient authors, as Aristophanes, Menander, Horace, 
Cicero, and Homer. When he left this field, with which he 
was so familiar, for that of English poetry, he failed most 
signally. He undertook some emendations of the text of 
Milton's poetry, acting upon the idea, then prevalent, that 
there were some errors in it which had been caused by the 
carelessness of the great poet's amanuensis, and without any 
of the true poetic inspiration, he set about correcting these 
errors. Of his fitness for such an undertaking, we may judge 
by the two following examples: 

"Xo light, but rather darkness visible," 



216 THE ESSAYISTS. 

is erased, and for it is substituted 

" ISTo light, but rather a transpicuous gloom" 



The lines, 



' Our torments also may in length of time 
Become our elements," 



are altered so as to read thus : 

" Then as 'twas well observed our torments may 
Become our elements." 

But it is not in the capacity last mentioned that Bentley 
is to be estimated : his fame rests upon his profound, and, 
at that time unrivalled, knowledge of ancient literature. 

About this time the essay began to assume a different 
character, and instead of a grave and learned treatise, came 
to mean a brief dissertation, written in a light and pleasing 
style, always with an ethical basis, and intended for popular 
instruction and improvement. This kind of essay was a 
natural outgrowth of the period. We have seen that this 
period was deficient in originality ; and, as a natural conse- 
quence, failing to discover new treasures, took to studying, 
arranging, and classifying the old; hence the devotion to 
criticism, and the attempt to establish canons of taste. The 
reaction from the immorality of the preceding age, more- 
over, unaccompanied with any spiritual awakening, pro- 
duced, not fervid preachers or indignant ascetics, but elegant 
moralists, who moved in polished society, noted its follies 
and foibles, and sought to correct them, but with a smile 
and a well-bred manner. 

The introduction of the periodical paper, intended to 
encourage letters, good morals, and good taste, for which the 
world is indebted to Steele, placed in the hands of these 
amiable censors of society a medium for reaching at once an 
extensive circle of readers; and hence arose that series of 



JOSEPH ADDISON. 217 

weekly journals, the special organs of the essayists, which, 
under the names of The Tatter, The Spectator, The Connois- 
seur, The Lounger, Tlue Rambler, etc., delighted and in- 
structed English society down to the close of the period. 

Of these essayists, the "most finished, though not the 
greatest either in genius or learning, is Joseph Addison. 
He was born at Milston, in Wiltshire, in 1672. From the 
Charter-House, where he was a school-fellow of Steele, he 
was removed to Oxford, wiiere, after the completion of his 
education, he continued to reside as a fellow. His inclina- 
tions and religious turn of mind made him desirous of enter- 
ing the clerical profession ; but Montagu, who was ever on 
the lookout for young men of literary talent, as well for the 
purpose of encouraging them as of availing himself of their 
aid in political measures, seeing in the young Oxonian the 
promise of a great career, dissuaded him from his purpose, 
and spread out before his ambition such fair prospects of 
fame, that he was not able to resist their allurements. He 
had already produced a poem of considerable merit, addressed 
to King William, and dedicated to Lord Somers. For this, 
and for the purpose of becoming familiar with the French 
language, a necessary qualification in one destined, as he was, 
for a diplomatist, he received a pension of £300 per annum, 
and was sent upon his travels. By the time he had returned, 
Montagu had fallen into disgrace ; and shortly afterward, by 
the death of William, and the accession of Queen Anne, the 
Whig party went out of office, and his hopes of political 
promotion were at an end. He quietly sought a humble 
residence, where he lived for some time in much pecuniary 
distress. But to the surprise and delight of himself and the 
other Whigs, the new ministers, Goclolphin and Marlborough, 
adopted both the foreign and financial policy of the Whig 
party. Godolphir. knew the value of literature to the states- 
man; but he had little acquaintance with the wits of the 

10 



2 IS TEE ESSAYISTS. 

time. A poem in honor of Marlborough's great victory of 
Blenheim was heeded by the administration; and Montagu 
was consulted as to the person to be selected to write it. He 
named Addison. The latter was found in his garret, readily 
jpted the appointment, and. in a short time, produced 
The Campaign. This poem at once raised him to popularity, 
and he was made Commissioner of Appeals. When the 
coalition with the Whigs was fully effected, he became Under- 
Secretary of State. 

It was while he was residing in Ireland as the secretary of 
the Duke of Wharton, that his friend Steele commenced the 
publication of The Tatler. When Addison found out who 
author was. he contributed liberally to the periodical 
throughout its brief existence. In the meantime the queen, 
who had always been a Tory at heart, was at last induced 
by her affection for Mrs. Mash am, to turn the Whigs out of 
office, and put the administration in the hands of Harley, 
and Addison suffered with his political friends. After the 
suspension of Tut TatlerAie began the publication of T 7 ^ 
Spectator. The Spectator was "a gentleman who. after 
passing a studious youth at the university, has travelled on 
classic ground, and has bestowed much attention on curious 
points of antiquity. He has. on his return, fixed his resi- 
dence in London, and has observed all the forms of life 
which are to be found in that great city: — has daily listened 
to the wits at Wills', has smoked with the philosophers of 
the Grecian, and has mingled with the parsons at Child s', 
and with the politicians at St. James*. In the morning he 
often listens to the hum of the Exchange : in the evening, 
his face is constantly to be seen in the pit of Drury 
Lane Theatre. But an insurmountable bashfulness pre- 
vents him opening his mouth except in a small circle of 
intimate friends.*' This admirable periodical comprises 
between five and six hundi 1 rd essavs, more than half of which 



THE SPECTATOR. 219 

were written by Addison himself. They may be known in 
the collection by each one's being signed by one of the let- 
ters in the word Clio. 

Of the multitude of papers in The Spectator, the Vision 
of Mirza and the Death of Sir Roger de Coverlet/ are among 
the choice favorites, and to be found in nearly all collections. 
We give as a specimen two extracts from Nos. 125 and 126, 
both by Addison : 

" My worthy friend, Sir Roger, when we are talking of the malice of 
parties, veiy frequently tells us an accident that happened to him when 
he was a school-boy, which was at the time when the feuds ran high 
between the Roundheads and Cavaliers. This worthy knight, being 
then but a stripling, had occasion to inquire which was the way to 
St. Anne's Lane ; upon which the person whom he spoke to, instead 
of answering his question, called him a young Popish cur, and asked 
him who had made Anne a saint? The boy, being in some confusion, 
inquired of the next he met, which was the way to Anne's Lane ? but 
was called a prick-eared cur for his pains, and instead of being shown 
the way, was told that she had been a saint before he was born, and 
would be one after he was hanged. * Upon this,' says Sir Roger, ' I 
did not think fit to repeat the former question, but going into every 
lane in the neighborhood, asked what they called the name of that 
lane?' By which ingenious artifice he found out the place he inquired 
after, without giving offence to any party. Sir Roger generally closes 
this narrative with reflections on the mischief that parties do in the 
country ; how they spoil good neighborhood, and make honest gentle- 
men hate one another; besides that they manifestly tend to the preju- 
dice of the land-tax, and the destruction of the game. 

" There cannot be a greater judgment befall a countiy than such a 
dreadful spirit of division as rends a government into two distinct peo- 
ples, and makes them greater strangers and more averse to each other 
than if they were actually two different nations. The effects of such 
a division are pernicious to the last degree, not only in regard to those 
advantages which they give the common enemy, but to those private 
evils which they produce in the heart of almost every particular per- 
son. This influence is very fatal both to men's morals and their un- 
derstandings ; it sinks the virtue of a nation, and not only so, but de- 
stroys even common sense. 

" A furious party-spirit, when it rages in its full violence, exerts itself 
in civil war and bloodshed ; and when it is under its greatest restraints, 



2*20 THE ESSAYISTS. 

naturally breaks out in falsehood, detractions, calumny, and a partial 
administration of justice. In a word, it -tills a nation with spleen and 
rancor, and extinguishes all the seeds of good-nature, compassion, 

and humanity 

" For my own part, I could heartily wish that all honest men would 
enter into an association for the support of one another against the 
endeavors of those whom they ought to look upon as their common 
enemies, whatsoever side they may belong to. Were there such an 
honest body of neutral forces, we should never see the worst of men 
in great figures of life because they are useful to a party ; nor the best 
unregarded because they are above practising those methods which 
would be grateful to their faction. We should then single every 
criminal out of the herd, and hunt him down, however formidable and 
overgrown he might appear; on the contrary, we should shelter dis- 
tressed innocence, and defend virtue, however beset with contempt or 
ridicule, envy or defamation.' ' 



"In my yesterday's paper I proposed that the honest men of all 
parties should enter into a kind of association for the defence of 
one another, and the confusion of their common enemies. As it is 
designed this neutral body should act with a regard to nothing but 
truth and equity, and divest themselves of the little heats and prepos- 
sessions that cleave to parties of all kinds. I have prepared for them 
the following form of an association which may express their inten- 
tions in the most plain and simple manner : 

"'We, whose names are hereunto subscribed, do solemnly declare 
that we do in our consciences believe two and two make four; and 
that we shall adjudge any man whatsoever to be our enemy who en- 
deavors to persuade us to the contrary. We are likewise ready to 
maintain, with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us. that six is 
less than seven in all times and in all places ; and that ten will not be 
more three years hence than it is at present. We do also firmly de- 
clare that it is our resolution, as long as we live, to call black. I 
and white, white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such per- 
sons that upon any day of the year shall call black white, or white 
black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes/ ...... 

M A member of this society that would thus carefully employ him- 
self in making room for merit, by throwing down rhe worthless and 
depraved part of mankind from those conspicuous stations of life to 
which they have sometimes advanced, and all this without any reg 
to his private interest, would be no small benefactor to his country. 

u I remember to have read in Dlodorus Siculu? an account of a very 
active litth animal, which I think he calls the hat makes 



ADDISON'S "CATO." 221 

it the whole business of life to break the eggs of the crocodile, which 
he is always in search after. This instinct is the more remarkable 
because the ichneumon never feeds upon the eggs he has broken, nor 
in any other way finds his account in them. Were it not for the in- 
cessant labors of this industrious animal, Egypt, says the historian, 
would be overrun with crocodiles ; for the Egyptians are so far from 
destroying these pernicious creatures, that they worship them as 
gods. 

"If we look into the behavior of ordinary partisans, we shall find 
them far from resembling this disinterested animal; and rather acting 
after the example of the wild Tartars, who are ambitious of destroying 
a man of the most extraordinary parts and accomplishments, as think- 
ing that upon his decease, the same talents, whatever post they quali- 
fied him for, enter, of course, into his destroyer." 

The Spectator was suspended in the latter part of the year 
1712. For several months afterwards, Addison was engaged 
in bringing forward his tragedy of Cato — a work which he 
had begun several years before. No drama ever met with so 
brilliant a reception from the public. The well-known 
abilities of the author, his immense popularity with the 
Whigs, and the little partisan feeling with which he was 
regarded by the Tories, procured a full house at the Drury 
Lane Theatre. There were, also, political considerations 
which aided its reception. The sentiments of liberty and 
virtue with which it abounded were applauded by both par- 
ties, who vied with each other in claiming those sentiments 
as their own. Bolingbroke, the Tory leader, in the interval 
between two acts, called to his box the tragedian Booth, who 
acted the part of Cato, and presented him with fifty guineas. 
The play ran thirty-five consecutive nights, and brought 
into the theatre twice the gains of a whole ordinary season. 
Very far as this drama is below the great dramatic composi- 
tions of the Elizabethan era, it contributed more than all 
the rest of Addison's writings to the fame which he enjoyed 
while living. Its declamatory style, congenial as it was with 
the practices and sent Jiients of the politicians, compensated 



222 THE ESSAYISTS. 

with them for its want of general dramatic excellence, and 
set a pernicious example of declamation in dialogue. 

Addison had the good fortune to be again raised to politi- 
cal position, passing through several inferior offices to that 
of Secretary of State, to which he was raised in 1717. He 
had, the year before, married the Countess Dowager of War- 
wick — a marriage which failed to bring him the happiness 
he expected, as the noble lady did not fail to remind him 
often that the former distance in their relative social ranks 
had not been lessened by her consenting to become his wife. 
Shortly after going into office, his health failed, and he had 
to resign. He lingered until the summer of 1719, when, 
quietly and resignedly, and in the hopes of the Christian, 
he expired. 

What gives Addison the chief place among these essayists, 
is his exquisite good taste and well-balanced judgment. 
Steele had more humor and feeling. Swift more force, and 
Johnson more learning; but taste and judgment are the 
chief qualifications demanded here. He was the master of a 
style, graceful, easy, sweet, refined, and lightened with deli- 
cate pleasantry, which is still considered unsurpassed of its 
kind. His connection with public affairs and his position 
in society had given him an abundant knowledge of the 
world; and his native good humor and deficiency of strong 
feeling made him tolerant. While combating for virtue and 
truth, he never denounces vice with vehemence, or flays 
error with sarcasm; but reproves with gentle gravity or 
satirises with playful wit. If we cannot but feel that while 
we admire the character of Addison, it fails to inspire us 
with enthusiasm, that his blood seems to flow too placidly 
temperate, that he is a little too conscious of his own virtue 
and moderation, and that we could have preferred a few 
faults and a little more heart; we must remember to bis 
honor that he neTer abused his power, that he never struck 



RICHABD STEELE. 223 

an enemy a foul blow, nor rejected a friend's appeal, and 
that he unswervingly throughout life sustained the character 
he \iad chosen of a Christian gentleman. 

The name of Eichaed Steele arouses in us far more 
sympathy and far less admiration than that of Addison. 
He was born of English parents, in Dublin, in the year 1675. 
By the influence of the Duke of Ormond, whose secretary 
his father was, he was sent, when very young, to the Charter- 
House school, in London, where there began between himself 
and Addison the friendship which endured during their 
lives. Steele was afterwards sent to Oxford ; but being de- 
sirous of joining the army, and meeting with no encourage- 
ment from his friends, he eloped, and entered as a private 
into the Horse Guards. This step cost him the succession 
to a handsome estate, which had been bequeathed him by a 
relation, who, on hearing of his rashness, at once altered his 
will in favor of another. Steele, however, with that singular 
disregard of pecuniary advantages which always charac- 
terized him, instead of regretting, exulted at this sacrifice. 
His generosity of disposition, his excellent understand- 
ing, and his incomparable wit, rendered him so much a 
favorite in the army, that he was soon raised to the rank of 
ensign. With the weakness so often the companion of the 
best faculties, he readily fell into various immoral excesses ; 
and, being to a high degree sensitive and conscientious, the 
remembrance of those excesses, in his hours of thoughtful- 
ness, occasioned him to feel the most painful remorse. K"ot 
having the power to refrain from their repetition by his own 
volition, he wrote, what was his first published work, The 
Christian Hero, trusting that the fear of the public derision, 
which would ensue upon a comparison of the sentiments of 
that work with his own conduct, would necessarily produce 
a change in the latter, The consequences natural to so vain 
an endeavor followed. He continued his course of life; and 



224 THE ESSAYISTS. 

to the pain of the consciousness of doing wrong, was added 
that of the derision from which he had hoped a better 
result. 

Shortly after the publication of The Christian Hero, 
appeared consecutively his comedies, The Funeral, and The 
Tender Husband ; and while they were; in point of humor 
and* general dramatic merit, inferior to those of theEestora- 
tion, they already exhibited that desire for the inculcation of 
virtue, which, in spite of his own delinquencies, made him 
one of the most influential reformers of the abuses to which 
that age had given birth. His third comedy, The Lying 
Lover, was too serious to be successful ; and his mortification 
at its failure deterred him from making any further effort 
in dramatic composition for eighteen years. At the end of 
this period, he produced his greatest drama, The Conscious 
Lovers ; a work which has always ranked high in dramatic 
literature. With all Steele's frailties, he was an ardent 
admirer of virtue, especially of female virtue. It is his 
greatest praise that he was the first to seek to restore to the 
stage that decency which had been driven from it. 

With the design of inculcating a high standard, both in 
literature and in manners, he began, in 1709, the earliest 
literary periodical, The Tatler ; an enterprise which has 
deservedly given him the title of the father of periodical 
writing. When the paper was first issued, not even Addison, 
his most intimate friend, knew him to be the author. It was 
after only a very few numbers, that a criticism upon a pas- 
sage from Virgil, which he had obtained from Addison, 
discovered him as the author to the latter, who was then in 
Ireland. He, at once, seconded the enterprise, and became 
its ablest contributor. The Tatler having been discontinued 
in 1710, and succeeded by the Spectator of Addison, Steele, 
in 1713, started the Guardian. The latter beginning to take 
a part in politics, he suddenly dropped it, and in its stead 



RICHARD STEELE. 225 

sibstituted the Englishman, which was altogether political. 
With considerable political ability, he engaged with all the 
ardor of his disposition in the cause of the Whigs. Being in 
office as commissioner of the stamp revenues, when the Tory 
party, under Eobert Harley, Earl of Oxford, came into 
power, though he would have been permitted to keep it, he 
resigned it without hesitation. His letter of resignation to 
that statesman is a brilliant illustration of honesty and 
courage. He had been returned to a seat in Parliament, but 
attacked the Tories so violently in the Englishman and in 
a pamphlet called The Crisis, that, on a complaint before the 
House of Commons, he was expelled. He persisted, notwith- 
standing, in taking a part in political affairs. With the 
honesty of purpose which had ever distinguished him, having 
opposed the Peerage Bill which the Whig administration of 
1719 proposed, he was rudely treated by Addison, who always 
took the liberty of lecturing him. He bore it, however, with 
his accustomed good-nature, and refused to separate from a 
man, whom, in spite of his occasional rudeness, he had 
always respected and loved. Other papers were afterwards 
started by Steele ; but his volatile disposition, and his incura- 
ble habit of going in debt, prevented his making of them 
what his abilities were fully sufficient to have done. ]Nfow 
growing old, with the incumbrance of a wife and children, 
greatly suffering from want, and stricken by disease, he 
retired into Whales, where he was suffered to live on an estate 
which he owned there, by the indulgence of the mortgagee. 
He died in 1729. 

The writings of Steele are full of vivacity, fancy, humor, 
and knowledge of the world and the human heart. He often 
offends against good taste, but never, wilfully, against good 
morals. Compared with Addison, he has more sympathy 
with human error and frailty, and yet less toleration for it — - 
an apparently paradoxical, and yet perfectly natural, state of 

10* 



226 THE ESSAYISTS. 

mind. From his own experience lie knew the deformity of 
error better than Addison, but from the same experience he 
knew how prone are even the good to fall. Erring as was 
the life of Steele, we cannot praise him too much for the 
noble zeal with which his writings show that he was devoted 
to the good of mankind. 2STo one can read the following 
extract from one of his articles in the Spectator without 
believing that the author's heart burned with a genuine love 
of humanity. 

" It is the most beautiful object the eyes of man can behold, to see a 
man of worth and his son live in an entire, unreserved correspondence. 
The mutual kindness and affection between them give an inexpressible 
satisfaction to all who know them. It is a sublime pleasure which 
increases by the participation. It is as sacred as friendship, as pleasur- 
able as love, and as joyful as religion. This state of mind does not 
only dissipate sorrow, which would be extreme without it, but enlarges 
pleasures which would otherwise be contemptible. The most indiffer- 
ent thing has its force and beauty, when it is spoke by a kind father, 
and an insignificant trifle has its weight when offered by a dutiful 
child. I know not how to express it. I think I may call it ' a trans- 
planted self-love/ All the enjoyments and sufferings which a man 
meets with are "regarded only as they concern him, in the relation he 
has to another. A man's very honor receives a new value to him when 
he thinks that when he is in his grave, it will be had in remembrance 
that such an action was done by such an one's father. Such consid- 
erations sweeten the old man's evening, and his soliloquy delights him 
when he can say to himself, ' No man can tell my child, his father was 
either unmerciful or unjust/ My son shall meet many a man who 
shall say to him, * I was obliged to thy father, and be my child a friend 
to his children forever/ " 

The last writer whom we shall notice under this head is 
one with whom the period really closes. The Eomantic 
reaction had already begun in his time, in the works of 
Macpherson, Bishop Percy, and Chatterton ; and after him 
comes the French Eevolution and a new world. At no time, 
save one like this, could he have obtained such influence and 
reputation; and he was the last great buttress of classi- 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 227 

cism, and tlie most characteristic representative of the period 
to which he belongs. For, as we have seen, this period, from 
Dryden down, was characterized by want of originality and 
audacity, by destitution of ideality, by servile devotion to 
learning and sedulous attention to style; and in no other 
writer of the time do we find less originality, unideality so 
absolute, learning so extensive, or a style so elaborate and 
imposing. 

Samuel Johxso^" was born in 1709. His father was a 
small bookseller, who used, as we learn from an anecdote, to 
peddle books at fairs and markets. As a boy, Johnson was 
distinguished for his studious habits, and, having acquired 
what learning a Lichfield school could impart, went as a 
poor-scholar to Oxford. Here his attainments and industry 
attracted some attention ; but he was compelled by poverty 
to leave college and take an usher's place in a school; and 
afterwards he opened a school of his own. 

The anecdote above alluded to is worth recording. It is 
preserved in the following note of apology addressed by 
Johnson to a lady: 

"Madam: I beg your pardon for the abruptness of my departure in 
the morning, but I was compelled to it by conscience. Fifty years 
ago, madam, on this day, I committed a breach of filial piety. My 
father had been in the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and open- 
ing a stall there for the sale of his books, Confined by indisposition, 
he desired me that day to go and attend the stall in his place. My 
pride prevented me : I gave my father a refusal. 

" And now, to-day, I have been at Uttoxeter ; I went into the mar- 
ket at the time of business, uncovered my head, and stood with it 
bare, for an hour, on the spot where my father's stall used to stand. 
In contrition I stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory." 

Having made the acquaintance of Cave, the publisher of 
the Gentleman's Magazine, Johnson, in 1737, went to Lon- 
don, and took up authorship as a profession. His poverty 
was still great, but his indomitable resolution supported him, 



228 THE ESSAYISTS. 

and his writings not only provided him with a frugal sub- 
sistence, but gradually brought him into notice. In 1738 ; 
he published a poem called London, in imitation of thft 
Third Satire of Juvenal, and in the following year a Life of 
Richard Savage (a literary Bohemian of the day) in the 
Gentleman's Magazine, on which journal he had regular 
employment. In 1749 appeared his poem On the Vanity of 
Human Wishes ; and in the same year his tragedy Irene was 
produced on the stage. 

About this time he planned his great Dictionary of the 
English Language, and, according to a custom not then obso- 
lete, sought for a wealthy and influential patron to aid him 
in bringing it out. His choice fell upon the Earl of Ches- 
terfield, distinguished then, and still famous, for the polish 
of his manners. This nobleman, it appears, held out hopes 
of assistance to Johnson which he never fulfilled; and 
Johnson, after seven years of patient and assiduous labor, 
was able, in 1755, to publish his Dictionary by subscription, 
and avenge himself on the Earl by a letter closing with these 
remarks : 

" Seven years, my lord, have now past since I waited in your out- 
ward rooms or was repulsed from your door ; during which time I 
have been pushing on my Work through difficulties of which it is use- 
less to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publica- 
tion, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or 
one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never had 
a patron before. 

" The Shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with Love, and 
found him a native of the rocks. 

" Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man 
struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, 
encumbers him with help ? The notice which you have been pleased 
to take of my labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been 
delayed till I am indifferent and cannot enjoy it ; till I am solitary and 
cannot impart it ; till I am known and do not want it. I hope it is no 
very cynical asperity not to confess obligations when no benefit has 
been received ; or to be unwilling that the public should consider me 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 229 

as owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me to do for 
myself. 

11 Having carried on my Work thus far with so little obligation to 
any favourer of learning, I shall not be disappointed though I should 
conclude it, if less be possible, with less ; for I have long been 
awakened from that dream of hope, in which I once boasted myself, 
with so much exultation, 

"My lord, 
"Your lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, 

"Sam. Johnson." 

During a part of this time (1750-1752) he had published 
a periodical in the style of the Spectator, and called the 
Rambler, which appeared twice a week, and all the papers in 
which, except three or four, were written by himself. He 
was now well-known, and already that coterie of admirers 
and friends had begun to collect around him, which after- 
wards included most of the prominent literary men of the 
day; and chief among them in devotion, though by no 
means in talent, James Boswell, his biographer. 

In the years 1758 to 1760 he published the Idler, a peri- 
odical resembling the Rambler. His story or allegory of 
Rasselas (composed, it is said, to provide means to defray his 
mother's funeral expenses) appeared in 1759. In 1762 he 
received from the Court a pension of three hundred pounds 
a year, as an acknowledgment of his labors in the service of 
literature. His Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland 
appeared in 1775; his Lives of the Poets in 1781. He died 
in 1784. 

The style of Johnson, deemed so admirable at the time, 
seems to us now intolerably artificial, pedantic, constrained, 
and ponderous. His periods are carefully considered aud 
balanced, its proportionate length, emphasis, and weight of 
heavy words being given to each member: homely and 
familiar words and phrases, however apposite or expressive, 
are rejected as undignified; antithesis does duty for bril- 



230 THE ESSAYISTS. 

liancy, and an occasional reversal of the syntax for -variety. 
Each point is handled in the style of a solemn argument : 
step by step the demonstration proceeds, often leading to a 
conclusion which would have been admitted upon statement. 
His utterances are too frequently elaborately dressed-up 
commonplaces ; and a laborious paragraph is employed to 
evolve a thought which might have been more forcibly 
expressed in a single terse idiomatic phrase. Thus, his style 
has no freshness, no individual coloring ; we feel that it is 
the result of a multitude of heterogeneous minds, all ground 
together in the mill of omnivorous learning. 

Johnson's criticisms are learned, carefully weighed, but 
deficient in insight. He had no faculty of entering into 
other men's natures, and justly appreciating views which he 
did not himself hold. He was an infatuated, though per- 
fectly honest and disinterested, Tory ; and his intense political 
bias often led him into absurd injustice. In his eyes Voltaire 
was merely an infidel and cynical buffoon, and Eousseau a 
miscreant deserving the gallows. Being absolutely destitute 
of the poetic faculty, he lacked the essential qualification for 
a critic of poetry; and, while sure to detect a fallacy in 
reasoning, or a blemish in morals, the finer spirit of poetry 
he could not appreciate. 

On the other hand, his writings are everywhere pervaded 
by a perfect love of truth and justice, and an utter abhor- 
rence of falsehood and fraud ; by a pure morality, enforced 
with the strongest emphasis ; by a warm admiration for all 
things good and noble; and by the sincerest spirit of Chris- 
tian piety; all which qualities he exemplified in his own 
brave and blameless life. 

His style, ponderous and constrained as it now appears, 
was not without many good qualities. A trite piece of mo- 
rality, enunciated with such majestic solemnity and such a 
weight of emphasis, frequently strikes the reader with a force 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 231 

it never had before, and acquires a new importance in liis 
eyes. It had also the merit of perfect intelligibility, and 
ordered sequence of thought; and though for a time its 
influence was injurious to the language — being more or less 
feebly copied by multitudes of weaker writers, attracted by 
its property of making common-places appear profound and 
platitudes sublime — still it has not been without benefit, in 
inculcating logical precision of expression, which has never 
been a strong point with English writers. 

Johnson is, in various ways, the last writer of his period. 
He was the last of the literary Autocrats who " gave their 
little senates," and the world through them, "laws;" he was, 
in a sort of inverse way, the last of the Dedicators ; and he 
was the last of the old school of Tories, and upholders of the 
divine right of kings. He just lived to see the American 
Revolution, and the rise of modern democracy ; and after 
him, as we said, comes the French Revolution and a new 
world. 

The following passage is from Imlac's disputation on the 
qualifications of the poet, in Rasselas. 

"Being now resolved to be a poet, I saw everything with a new 
purpose; my sphere of ambition was suddenly magnified; no kind of 
knowledge was to be overlooked. I ranged mountains and deserts for 
images and resemblances, and pictured upon my mind every tree of 
the forest and flower of the valley ; observed with equal care the crags 
of the rock and the pinnacles of the palace. Sometimes I wandered 
along the mazes of the rivulet, and sometimes watched the changes of 
the summer clouds. To a poet nothing can be useless ; whatever is 
beautiful and whatever is dreadful must be familiar to his imagination ; 
lie must be conversant with all that is awfully vast or elegantly little. 
The plants of the garden, the animals of the wood, the minerals of the 
earth, and meteors of the sky, must all concur to store his mind with 
inexhaustible variety ; for every idea is useful for the enforcement or 
decoration of moral or religious truth, and he who knows most will 
have most power of diversifying his scenes and of gratifying his read- 
ers with remote allusions and unexpected instruction. 

* All the appearances of nature I was therefore careful to study ; and 



232 THE ESSAYISTS 

every country which I surveyed has contributed something to my 
poetical powers. *' 

44 In so wide a survey/' said the prince, '"you must surely have left 
much unobserved. I have lived, till now, within the circuit of these 
mountains, and yet cannot walk abroad without the sight of something 
which I had never beheld before, or never heeded." 

" The business of a poet," said Irnlae, M is to examine, not the indi- 
vidual, but the species ; to remark general properties and large appear- 
ances. He does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the 
different shades in the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his 
portraits of nature such prominent and striking features as recall the 
original to every mind, and must neglect the minute discriminations, 
which one may have remarked, and another have neglected, for those 
characteristics which are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness. 

"But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of a poet : he 
must be acquainted likewise with all the modes of life. His character 
requires that he estimate the happiness and misery of every condition, 
observe the power of the passions in all their combinations, and trace 
the changes of the human mind, as they are modified by various insti- 
tutions and accidental influences of climate or custom, from the 
sprightliness of infancy to the despondence of decrepitude. He must 
divest himself of tbe prejudices of his age or country ; he must consider 
right and wrong in their abstracted and invariable state : he must dis- 
regard present laws and opinions, and rise to general and transcen- 
dental truths, which will always be the same. He must, therefore, con- 
tent himself with the slow progress of his name, contemn the applause 
of his own time, and commit his claims to the justice of posterity. He 
must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, 
and consider himself as a being presiding over the thoughts and man- 
ners of future generations — as a being superior to time and space. 

" ' His labor is not yet at an end. He must know many languages 
and many sciences ; and, that his style may be worthy of his thoughts, 
must by incessant practice familiarize to himself eveiy delicacy of 
speech and grace of harmony.' 

u Imlac now felt the enthusiastic fit, and was proceeding to aggran- 
dize his own profession, when the prince cried out, 'Enough! thou 
hast convinced me that no human being can ever be a poet.' " 



CHAPTER XXII. 

The Political Writers— Swift— Defoe. 

The Revolution wrought an entire change in the English 
political system. The direct responsibility of the king to 
the people had been successfully asserted in the case of 
Charles I. ; but it was a mode of proceeding that the nation 
had no desire to try again. They therefore substituted a 
constitutional sovereign, irresponsible himself, but advised 
by a responsible ministry, w r ho might be punished if they 
betrayed their trust, and removed if they forfeited the confi- 
dence of the people. Thus arose the modern partisan Par- 
liamentary warfare : the ministry and their friends (as a 
general rule) retaining themselves in power on the condition 
of being able to command a majority in Parliament, which 
is considered equivalent to possessing the people's confidence ; 
while the Opposition continually exerts itself to discredit 
them or their measures in Parliament and with the people. 

The spread of newspapers, and increased familiarity with 
public affairs, gave the people at large greater influence over 
their representatives in Parliament; and hence it was found 
of high importance on either side to appeal directly to the 
people, and avail themselves of the force — now all-powerful 
— of public opinion. In this way arose a new form of politi- 
cal writings; not learned treatises intended for princes or 
statesmen, but plain, homely, vigorous writing, appealing to 
the masses of voters. 

The chief of these writers, and perhaps the most intense 



234 THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

and powerful political writer that has yet appeared, was 
Joxathak Swift. He was born, the son of an attorney, in 
Dublin, in 1667. With a singular notion of keeping the 
place of his birth in obscurity, it was not known until aftei 
his death, when it was ascertained by an account of himself, 
which he had written out, and which at the time of writing 
his life by Sheridan was, and probably now is, in the library 
of Dublin College. He was educated at the University of 
Dublin. From some cause, either idleness or his great un- 
popularity, it was with difficulty that he obtained his first 
degree. His second was taken at Oxford. When he arrived 
at man's estate, he was received into the family of Sir Wil- 
liam Temple. Here he resided until 1694, when, disap- 
pointed of his hopes of political promotion, he went away 
discontented, and entered the Church. He was afterwards 
recalled by Temple, with the promise of preferment. He 
remained there four years longer, until the latter's death, 
during which time he produced his two works, The Battle 
of the Books, written on the controversy between Bentley 
and Temple* and the other wits; and the Tale of a Tub, a 
satire which was considered so irreligious in its tendencies, 
that afterwards, when his political friends, the Tories, sought 
to make him a bishop, Queen Anne could not be induced to 
overcome her scruples and prejudices so far as to appoint 
him. 

Though the admirers of Swift contest this judgment, we 
believe it to be a just one, and consider the Tale of a Tab, 
whether so meant or not, a pungent satire against the three 
great divisions of the Christian Church ; and we think no 
one can read it without feeling that many furtive blows have 
been dealt against Christianity itself. 

In this extraordinary satire Swift first exhibited his unri- 
valled powers of grave irony, his vigorous, manly style, and a 
brighter, though not keener, wit than is elsewhere found in 



JONATHAN SWIFT. 235 

his writings. A certain father (the story goes) had three 
sons, Peter (the Catholic Church), Martin (the Lutheran), 
and Jack (the Calvinistic). On his death he bequeathed to 
them each a miraculous coat (the primitive Christian faith), 
possessed of admirable qualities, and with these a last will 
(the Scriptures), in which he had left " full instructions in 
every particular concerning the wearing and management of 
these coats." 

For some time the young men behave very well, until at 
last they come to town, mix with fashionable society, fall in 
love with ladies, and ape the courses of the gallants and men 
of fashion. But here their plain coats embarrassed them 
and caused them many mortifications; and the will, which 
forbade, under heavy penalties, their taking from or adding 
to the coats, greatly hampered them. This was especially 
annoying, as a new fashion of shoulder-knots had just come 
up. 

"In this unhappy case they went immediately to consult their 
father's will, read it over and over, but not a word of a shoulder-knot. 

After much thought, one of the brothers, who happened 

to be more book-learned than the other two, said he had found an 
expedient. i It is true,' said he, 4 there is nothing in this will, totidem 
verbis, making mention of shoulder-knots ; but I dare conjecture we 
may find them inclusive, or totidem syllabis? This distinction was 
immediately approved by all ; and so they fell again to examine ; but 
their evil star had so directed the matter that the first syllable was not 
to be found in the whole writings. Upon which disappointment, he 
who found the former evasion took heart and said : ' Brothers, there 
are yet hopes; for though we cannot find them totidem verbis nor 
totidem syllabis, I dare engage we shall make them out tertio modo or 
totidem Uteris. 1 This discovery was also highly commended; upon 
which they fell once more to the scrutiny, and picked out S, H, O, U, 
L, D, E, R ; when the same planet, enemy to their repose, had won- 
derfully contrived that a K was not to be found. Here was a weighty 
difficulty ; but the distinguishing brother, now his hand was in, proved 
by a very good argument that K was a modern illegitimate letter, un- 
known to the learned ages, nor anywhere to be found in ancient manu- 
scripts .... shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be jure 



236 THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

paterno, and oar three gentlemen swaggered with as large and flaunt- 
ing ones as the best." 

A fashion of silver fringe comes in — " Upon which the brothers, 
consulting their father's will, to their great astonishment found these 
words: 'Item, I charge and command iny said three sons to wear no 
sort of silver fringe upon or about their said coats.' However, after 
some pause, the brother so often mentioned for his erudition, who was 
well skilled in criticisms, had found in a certain author, which he said 
should be nameless, that the same word which in the will is called 
fringe does also signify a broomstick, and doubtless ought to have the 
same interpretation in this paragraph. This another of the brothers 
disliked, because of that epithet silver, which could not, he humbly 
conceived, in propriety of speech, be reasonably applied to a broom- 
stick ; but it was replied upon him that this epithet was understood in 
a mythological and allegorical sense. However, he objected again 
why their father should forbid them to wear a broomstick on their 
coats, a caution that seemed unnatural and impertinent; upon which 
he was taken up short as one that spoke irreverently of a mystery, 
which, doubtless, was very useful and significant, but ought not to be 
over-curiously pried into or nicely reasoned upon." 



And so on through page after page of the most masterly 
irony, growing teener and keener as it proceeds. But who 
cannot see here that the writer does not really respect what 
he professes to consider venerable; and that the famous 
" coats " are, in his eyes, very much such a crotchet or whim 
as the " shoulder-knots " and " fringes ? " 

In 1708 he published an ironical Argument against the 
Abolition of Christianity, which is in reality a biting sarcasm 
upon the frivolous freethinkers of the day, but conducted 
with such apparent earnestness and gravity that many per- 
sons thought it an outrageous attack upon the Christian 
religion. Irony of this sort is a dangerous weapon to the 
user; and we cannot but see that Swift, however honest, did 
not escape the effects of treating religion — even in pretence 
— with studied and continual contempt. 

The promises which King William made to his minister 
on his death-bed were not kept. Swift, however, obtained 



THE DRAPIER'S LETTERS. 237 

the poor living of Laracor, in Meath, and in 1713 was 
promoted to the Deaconry of St. Patrick's Cathedral, 
Dublin. 

In 1724 were published his famous Drapie^s Letters. 
The origin of their publication was this : There was a great 
want of small coin in Ireland, to such an extent as to be a 
serious embarrassment to trade and inconvenience to the 
public. A wealthy iron-master, named Wood, obtained let- 
ters-patent from the king (George I.) to coin copper money 
to the extent of £108,000 for use in Ireland. It is believed 
that both Wood and the government were acting in good 
faith, and that the convenience to the country would have 
been great ; but Swift saw the opportunity to make the gov- 
ernment feel his power, and in the guise of a plain, honest 
drapier (dealer in cloth), warns his countrymen against the 
gigantic fraud that is about to be practised upon them. 
Xothing can surpass the homely strength of his language, 
the apt way in which he fits his arguments and illustrations 
to his audience, the air of indignant honesty which he 
assumes — except the masterly art by which he makes falla- 
cies appear truths and disingenuousness honest simplicity. 
The people looked upon the drapier, or Swift, for the author- 
ship was not long concealed, as the champion of the nation 
against the intrigues of the court. The patent was finally 
revoked, and Swift had not only made the government feel 
and acknowledge his power, but was the most popular and 
influential man in Ireland. 

His ironical temper had now borne fruit : pretended de- 
ception had led to real deceit ; for whatever may have been 
Swift's opinion of the Wood patent, his Letters are crammed 
with every species of fallacy, sophistry, and ad captandum 
argument. At the same time he was the proudest man in 
England ; indeed, all his life he seems to have been half-insane 
with pride, and demanded humiliations from nearly all who 



238 THE POLITICAL WRITEBS. 

sought his favor. Feared at court, but admitted to the 
secrets of the great, he had an opportunity of seeing the 
intrigues and baseness of that corrupt region, which deep- 
ened and embittered his cynicism. 

The irony and sarcasm which he had directed against indi- 
viduals, sects, freethinkers, projectors, and the government, 
he next levelled against all mankind, in his wonderful Gul- 
liver's Travels. In this extraordinary book, under the cover 
of voyages to lands of dwarfs, giants, horses, etc., he bitterly 
satirizes the crimes, vices, and foibles of humanity. In his 
Voyage to Lilliput, not merely the faults and follies, but even 
their respectabilities are made to appear contemptible in the 
persons of little creatures but a few inches high, yet swelling 
with the pride, the pomp, and the passions of men ; whose 
pygmy monarch is addressed as "most mighty Emperor, de- 
light and terror of the universe, monarch of all monarchs, 
taller than the sons of men," and who, indeed, "is taller, by 
almost the breadth of my nail, than any of his court ; which 
alone is enough to strike an awe into his beholders. " The ter- 
rible wars between this nation and their tiny neighbors, on 
the mighty question whether eggs should be broken at the big 
or little end [an allusion to France, and the differences of reli- 
gion] and the party dissensions at home, between those who 
wore high heels and those who wore low [High Church and 
Low Church] with all their wiles of policy and intrigue, are 
in a vein of biting satire. 

So, in his Voyage to Broldingnag, reversing the picture, 
he shows how contemptible all human dignities must appear 
in the eyes of a race of giants; and he ironically apolo- 
gizes for the " narrowness of views " of the wise monarch of 
that people. 

On one occasion Gulliver explains to the king the nature 
and terrible properties of gunpowder, and, as a small tribute 
of his gratitude, offers to teach his workmen how to prepare 



GULLIVER'S TRAVELS. 239 

it and to cast cannon, with which he might lay his whole 
metropolis in ruins if it presumed to disobey him. 

11 The king was struck with, horror at the description I had given of 
those terrible engines, and the proposal I had made. He was ' amazed 
how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I ' (these were his ex- 
pressions) ' could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a 
manner as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and 
desolation which I had painted. As for himself,' he protested, 
1 although few things delighted him so much as new discoveries in 
art and nature, yet he would rather lose half his kingdom than be 
privy to such a secret, which he commauded me, as I valued my life, 
never to mention more.' 

"A strange effect of narrow principle? and views ! that a prince, 
possessed of every quality which procures veneration, love, and esteem, 
of strong parts, great wisdom, aud profound learning, endued with ad- 
mirable talents, aud almost adored by his subjects, should, from a nice 
unnecessary scruple, whereof in Europe we can have no conception, let 
slip an opportunity put into his hands, that would have made him the 
absolute master of the lives, the liberties, and the fortunes of his peo- 
ple ! Neither do I say this with the least intention to detract from the 
many virtues of that excellent king, whose character, I am sensible, 
will on this account be very much lessened in the opinion of an En- 
glish reader ; but I take this defect among them to have risen from their 
ignorance, by not having hitherto reduced politics to a science, as 
the more acute wits of Europe have done." 

In his Voyage to the Houyhnhnms, he exhibits the absurdity 
and viciousness of ordinary human conduct, when compared 
with that of creatures governed entirely by the laws of reason ; 
and in the Yahoos he paints humanity in the most revolting 
colors, attempting to show that man, once stripped of his 
varnish of civilisation, is below the very brutes in brutish- 
ness ; and here he revels in all the most disgusting details 
that can add force to his bitter misanthropy. 

Gulliver's master, a Houyhnhnm (or intelligent horse), 
requests to be informed of the customs of England, which 
Gulliver has much difficulty in making him comprehend. 
Here is a part of his account of lawyers and the law : 



240 THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

" l There is a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in 
the art of proving, b}> words multiplied for the purpose, that white is 
black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society 
all the rest of the people are slaves. For example, if my neighbor has 
a mind to my cow, he has a lawyer to prove that he ought to have 
my cow from me. I must then hire another to defend my right, it 
being against all rule of law that any man should be allowed to 
speak for himself. Now, in this case, I, who am the right owner, lie 
under two great disadvantages : first, my lawyer being practised 
almost from his cradle in defending falsehood, is quite out of his 
element when he would be an advocate for justice, which is an un- 
natural office he always attempts with great awkwardness, if not with 
ill-will. The second disadvantage is, that my lawyer must proceed 
with great caution, or else he will be reprimanded by the judges and 
abhorred by his brethren, as one that would lessen the practice of the 
law. And therefore I have but two methods to preserve my cow. 
The first is to gain over my adversary's lawyer with a double fee, who 
will then betray his client by insinuating that he has justice on his 
side. The second way is for my lawyer to make my cause appear 
as unjust as he can, by allowing the cow to belong to my adversary ; 
and this, if it be skillfully done, will certainly bespeak the favor of the 
Bench It is a maxim among these lawyers that what- 
ever has been done before, may legally be done again ; and therefore 
they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made 
against common justice and the general reason of mankind .... 
In the trial of persons accused for crimes against the state, the 
method is much more short and commendable; the judge first sends 
to sound the disposition of those in power, after which he can easily 
hang or save a criminal, strictly preserving all due forms of law.'* 

Nor do soldiers, physicians, or statesmen fare better: here 
is the sketch of a prime minister : 

" I told him that a first or chief minister of state was a creature 
wholly exempt from joy and grief, love and hatred, pity and anger: 
at least, makes use of no other passions but a violent desire of wealth, 
power, and titles ; that he applies his words to all uses, except to the 
indication of his mind ; that he never tells a truth but with the intent 
that you should take it for a lie, nor a lie but with a design that you 
should take it for a truth ; that those he speaks worst of behind their 
backs are in the surest way of preferment ; and whenever he begins to 
praise you to others, or to yourself, you are from that day forlorn. The 
worst mark you can receive is a promise, especially when it is con- 



JONA TEA N SWIFT. 241 

firmed with an oath, after which every wise man retires and gives over 
all hopes." 

Not the least extraordinary feature in Swift's life were his 
love-affairs. While at Moor Park, the residence of Temple, 
he became interested by a beautiful young woman, named 
Johnson (the celebrated Stella), a daughter of Sir William's 
housekeeper. She followed him by his invitation to Laracor, 
where she resided with a friend, a Mrs. Dingley, who was 
always present at their interviews. The story of this unfor- 
tunate woman, and her not less unfortunate rival, Miss 
Vanhomrigh (Vanessa), is one of the strangest and most 
interesting in history. Nothing was ever more cruel and 
selfish than his treatment of both these women. Having 
married the former privately, and that not until he was near 
fifty years old, having encouraged the love of the latter, who, 
when she ascertained the fact of his marriage, died of a 
broken heart, he, yet later in life, when all the ardent and 
generous impulses of youth were passed, proposed to his wife, 
what he had never done before, to come and live with him. 
The poor woman could only answer that it was now too late, 
and shortly afterwards followed her rival to the grave. The 
unhappy man mourned her loss with a bitterness which was 
increased by the remembrance of his long and persistent 
cruelty to her who was probably the only being whom he ever 
loved. 

Shadows began now to close darkly about his life. His 
bitterness and misanthropy increased, so that his most faith- 
ful friends renounced his society. He spent weeks and 
months in almost absolute silence and solitude, the human 
voice and face having become hateful to him. At last he 
entirely lost his reason, and, after remaining in this condition 
for three years, died in 1745. At his death it was found that 
he had bequeathed his property to found an asylum for 
lunatics. 

11 



248 TEE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

TVe have placed Swift in the Classical Period merely for 
chronological reasons: for there are none of the characteris- 
tics of that period about his works. His matter is intensely 
original^ and his style a masterpiece of simple, pure, strong 

English. Such a style indeed was necessary for his purposes 
of influencing the masses of the people. 

In the department of fiction he greatly resembles his 
contemporary Defoe. Like the latter, he has no elevation of 
imagination, but an exhaustless fertility of minute details, 
which give an air of reality to a story. This, however, he 
did not carry to the perfection of the author of Crusoe, as 
the satirical design of his works would have been defeated 
had the satire been unperceived. 

Pope, in his celebrated lines, offers Swift the choice of 
being considered another Cervantes or another Eabelais. 
But. in truth, he resembles neither: if he compares with 
Cervantes in the absolute mastery of language, in the perfect 
art of conducting a gravely humorous story, and in fertility 
of invention, he has nothing of the bright, sunny temper, the 
warmth of heart, and the noble sympathies of Cervantes; 
and he is as far from possessing the boundless fancy, the 
wild, frolicsome fun of Eabelais. The only points of compari- 
son with the latter are the wit and the indecency: but the 
wit of Rabelais tickles, that of Swift burns to the bone: the 
indecency of Eabelais is mere exuberance of animal spirits 
and mirth: that of Swift is deliberate plunging of the im- 
agination into ail things foul and disgusting, nor so much for 
love of them, as to feed his bitter humor and disgust of man- 
kind. 

Probably no man ever lived in whom the passion of hate 
was more intense than in Swift. His sarcasm never seems to 
him to go deep enough. Externally calm, but with a burn- 
ing heart, he implacably inflicts stab upon stab: nor is this 
from the mere triumphant pleasure in bis own powers: his 



DANIEL DEFOE. 243 

confidential journal shows how vindictive and intense were 
his animosities. At last he seems to have included all man- 
kind, except a few friends, in his abhorrence, and laid down 
the rule that " we should think of and deal with every man 
as a villain, without calling him so or valuing him less." A 
strange contrast to the gentle Cowper, perhaps more insane, 
but scarcely so unhappy. 

The next political writer whom we shall notice is more 
widely known to fame as a writer of fiction ; but we place 
him here for the reason that political writing was the proper 
literary business of his life, and his talents as a novelist only 
used by him late in life as a means of support, and appa- 
rently without full consciousness of their eminent character. 

Daniel Defoe, born in 1663, the son of a butcher, was, 
while quite young, engaged in the political disturbances of 
the times. When twenty-three years of age he took up arms 
in the unfortunate attempt of the Duke of Monmouth, and 
had a narrow escape of his life in the fierce persecution that 
followed. From this time forth he was one of the literary 
champions of the Whig party, and produced, with indefati- 
gable industry and zeal, a vast multitude of pamphlets, 
newspaper articles, letters, addresses, etc., all characterized 
by a plain, vigorous style, sound common sense and shrewd 
insight. In 1702, for a pamphlet misunderstood, he was 
punished by the pillory, the loss of his ears, and two years' 
imprisonment. Nearly all his life he was struggling with 
poverty and hosts of enemies, but his courage and fortitude 
never failed him. 

Eecent investigations have, we think, established the fact 
that, at one time at least, he was a traitor to the party he had 
undertaken to support ; and in his letters to members of the 
government, at the time he was controlling an Opposition 
paper, he declares that he is secretly working in the Govern- 
ment interest, and weakening their antagonists. 



2U THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

i 

At the age of fifty-five lie turned his talents to fiction, 
driven to it, apparently, by his own necessities and those of 
his family. In 1719 appeared the story of Robinson Crusoe, 
one of the most universally popular books that were ever 
written, and perhaps the only work mentioned in this volume 
(unless it be Shakespeare) which we can safely assume has 
been in the hands of every one of our readers. 

Crusoe was followed by Captain Singleton, in 1720 ; TJie 
Adventures of Moll Flanders, in 1721 ; Colonel Jack, the 
Journal of the Plague, and (probably) Memoirs of a Cava- 
lier, in 1722 ; Roxana, in 1724; The Neiv Voyage Round the 
World, in 1725 ; and the Memoirs of Captain Carleton, in 1728. 
Any of these would have insured their author reputation ; 
but Crusoe's popularity has been so great that the others have 
been almost entirely neglected. 

It is not improbable that Defoe's struggling and perse- 
cuted life, the numerous shifts and contrivances to which he 
must have been compelled, partly by poverty, and partly by 
danger, and the years spent by him in prison, may have 
suggested to him the idea of a man compelled to straggle, 
single-handed and alone, with nature, and make ingenuity and 
patience supply the want of strength, tools, and assistance. 
We can imagine that Defoe, placed in the situation of his 
hero, would have been just as patient, as laborious, as invent- 
ive, and unconquerable. 

The story itself is not so much a novel as a prose epic. It 
has no plot; and the entire interest is restricted to a single 
hero. It represents man in conflict with the forces of nature, 
with heavy odds against him, and finally triumphant by 
sheer intellect and fortitude.* Except in the poetical char- 
acter of this conception, there is no poetry in the story — 
nothing of the higher imagination; but an inexhaustible 

* The student may compare the same theme handled by a highly 
imaginative poet, in Victor Hugo's Travailleurs de la Mer. 



DANIEL DEFOE. 245 

invention of situations and incidents, all natural and proba- 
ble. To these incidents and their extreme verisimilitude, in 
which, by minuteness and ordination of detail, invention is 
raised to absolute vision, is due the charm which gives the 
book its wonderful popularity, while critics admire it for the 
charming purity and simplicity of the language. 

As a work of art (and the remark applies to all his nar- 
rative fictions), though perfect of its kind, it is of a kind not 
perfect. His object being that his stories should be believed 
for truth, he sacrifices everything to extreme realism, and 
introduces an infinity of minute and trivial details, often of 
absolute insignificance, but which effectually take away the 
appearance of invention or construction. His work may be 
compared to w r hat are called " rustic " structures, w 7 here knots, 
branches, roots — additions in themselves neither beautiful 
nor useful— are skilfully attached to the framework, to 
make the whole appear the rude work of nature rather than 
a product of art. 

Although we have classed Defoe among political writers, 
we prefer to select our specimen from one of his fictitious 
narratives, as his political writings would scarcely be intelli- 
gible, without extended commentaries, to those who have not 
closely studied the history of that time. 

Captain Singleton, a pirate, one of our author's imaginary 
heroes, has landed a party on an island in the Indian Ocean, 
where they have been attacked by savages, whom they re- 
pulsed, after a sharp skirmish. 

"But the worst of their adventure was to come; for, as they came 
back, they passed by a prodigious great trunk of an old tree : what tree 
it was they did not know, but it stood like an old decayed oak in a 
park, and just under the steep side of a great rock, or hill, so that our 
people could not see what was beyond it. 

" As they came by this tree, they were of a sudden shot at from the 
top of the tree, with seven arrows and three lances, which, to our great 
grief, killed two of our men, and wounded three mora .... 



2^6 THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

M Xow, it was impossible any of our men could get up the tree on the 
outside, there being no branches to climb by ; and to shoot at the tree, 
that they tried several times to no purpose, for the tree was so thick 
that no shot would enter it. They made no doubt, however, but that 
they had their enemies in a trap, and that a small siege would either 
bring them down, tree and all, or starve them out ; so they resolved 
to keep their post, and seud to us for help. Accordingly, two of them 
came away to us for more hands, and particularly desired that some 
of our carpenters might come with tools to help to cut down the tree, 
or at least to cut down other wood and set fire to it ; and that, they 
concluded, would not fail to bring them out. 

M William, the quaker, whose curiosity led him to go among the rest, 
proposed that they should make a ladder, and get upon the top, and 
then throw wildfire into the tree and smoke them out. Others pro- 
posed going back and getting a great gun out of the ship, which would 
split the tree in pieces with the iron bullets ; others, that they should 
cut down a great deal of wood and pile it round the tree, and set it on 
fire, and burn the tree and the Indians in it. 

" These consultations took up our people no less than two or three 
days, in all which time they heard nothing of the supposed garrison 
within this wooden castle, nor any noise within. William's project 
was first goue about, and a large, strong ladder was made, to scale this 
wooden tower ; and in two or three hour's time it would have been 
ready to mount, when, on a sudden, they heard the noise of the Indians 
in the body of 4he tree again, and a little after, several of them appeared 
in the top of the tree and threw some lances down at our men ; one 
of which struck one of our seamen atop of the shoulder, and gave him 
such a desperate wound that the surgeons not only had a great deal 
of difficulty to cure him, but the poor man endured such horrible 
torture that we all said they had better have killed him outright. 

"This put by the project of William's ladder; for when it was 
done, who would venture up among such a troop of bold creatures 
as were there, and who, as they supposed, were desperate by their 
circumstances ? And as but one man at a time could go up. they 
began to think that it would not do ; and indeed I was of the opinion 
(for about this time I was come to their assistance) that going up the 
ladder would not do, unless it was thus, that a man should, as it 
were, run just up to the top and throw some fireworks into the tree, 
and come down again ; aud this we did two or three times, but found 
no effect from it. At last one of our gunners made a stink-pot, as we 
called it, being a composition which only smokes, but does not flame 
or burn ; but withal, the smoke of it is so thick, aud the smell of it 



DANIEL DEFOE. 247 

so intolerably nauseous, that it is not to be suffered. This he threw 
into the tree himself, and waited for the effect of it, but heard or saw 
nothing all that night, or the next day ; so we concluded the men with 
in were all smothered, when, on a sudden, the next night, we heard 
them upon the top of the tree again, shouting and hallooing like 
madmen. 

" We concluded, as anybody would, that this was to call for help ; 
and we resolved to continue our siege ; for we were all enraged to 
see ourselves so balked by a few wild people, whom we thought we 
had safe in our clutches ; and, indeed, never were there so many con- 
curring circumstances to delude men, in any case we had met with. 
We resolved, however, to try another stink-pot the next night, and our 
engineer and gunner had got it ready, when, hearing a noise of the 
enemy on the top of the tree and in the body of the tree, I was 
not willing to let the gunner go up the ladder, which, I said, would be 
but to be certain of being murdered. However, he found a medium 
for it, and that was to go up a few steps, and, with a long pole in his 
hand, to throw it in upon the top of the tree, the ladder being stand- 
ing all this while against the top of the tree ; but when the gunner, 
with his machine at the top of his pole, came to the tree, with three 
other men to help him, behold, the ladder was gone. 

" This perfectly confounded us : and we now concluded the Indians 
in the tree had, by this piece of negligence, taken the opportunit} r , 
and coming all down the ladder had made their escape and .carried 
away the ladder with them. I laughed most heartily at my friend 
William, who, as I said, had the direction of the siege, and had set 
up a ladder for the garrison, as we called them, to get down upon 
and run away. But when daylight came we were all set to rights 
again ; for there stood our ladder, hauled up on the top of the tree, 
with about half of it in the hollow of the tree, and the other half 
upright in the air. Then we began to laugh at the Iudians for fools, 
that they could not as well have found their way down by the ladder, 
and have made their escape, as to have pulled it up by main strength 
into the tree. 

" We then resolved upon fire, and, to put an end to the work at once, 
to bum the tree and its inhabitants together; and accordingly we 
went to work to cut the wood, and, in a few hours' time we got enough, 
as we thought, together, and piling it up round the bottom of the 
tree, we set it on fire, and waited at a distance to see when the 
gentlemen (whose quarters must soon become too hot for them) would 
come flying out at the top. But we were quite confounded, when, on 
a sudden, we found the fire all put out by a great quantity of w r ater 
thrown upon it. We then thought the devil must be in them, to be sure. 



24S THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

Says William, ( this is certainly the cunningest piece of Indian engineer 
ing that ever was heard of : and there can be but one thing more to 
guess at, besides witchcraft and dealing with the devil, which I believe 
not one word of,' says he: * and that must be that this is an artificial 
tree, or a natural tree artificially made hollow down into the earth 
through root and all ; and that these creatures have an artificial cavity 
underneath it, quite into the hill, or a way to go through, and under 
the hill, to some other place ; and where that other place is. we know 
not ; but if it be not our own fault, I'll find the place and follow them 
into it before I am two davs older.' He then called the carpenters, to 
know of them if they had any large saws that would cut through 
the body ; and they told him they had no saws that were long enough, 
nor could men work into such a monstrous old stump for a great 
while 5 but that they would go to work at it with their axes, and un- 
dertake to cut it down in two days, and stub up the root of it in two 
more. But 'William was for another way, which proved much better 
than all this ; for he was for silent work, that, if possible, he might 
catch some of the fellows at it ; so he sets twelve men to it with 
large augers, to bore great holes in the side of the tree, to go almost 
through, but not quite through, which holes were bored without 
noise ; and when they were done, he filled them all with gunpowder, 
stopping strong plugs, bolted cross ways, into the holes, and then 
boring a slanting hole, of a less size, down into the greater hole, 
all which were filled with powder and at once blown up. "When 
they took fire*, they made such a noise, and tore and split the tree in 
^o many pieces, and in such a manner, that we could see plainly such 
another blast would demolish it ; and so it did. Thus, at the second 
time, we could at two or three places, put our hands in them, and dis- 
covered the cheat, namely, that there was a cave or hole dug in the 
earth, from or* through the bottom of the hollow, and that it had com- 
munication with another cave further in, where we heard the voices 
of several of the wild folks, calling and talking to one another. 

" When we came thus far, we had a great mind to get at them ; and 
William desired that three men might be given him with hand-grena- 
does : and he promised to go down first : and boldly he did so ; for 
"William, give him his due, had the heart of a lion. 

51 They had pistols in their hands and swords by their sides; but as 
they had taught the Indians before, by their stink-pots, the Indians 
returned them in their own kind ; for they made such a smoke come 
up out of the entrance into the cave or hollow, that William and his 
three men were glad to come running out of the cave and out of the 
tree too, for mere want of breath ; and, indeed, they were almost 
stifled. 



DANIEL DEFOE. 240 

11 Never was a fortification so well defended, or assailants so many- 
ways defeated. "We were now for giving it over but 

William said before he went he would have this satisfaction of them, 
namely, to burn down the tree and stop up the entrance into the cave. 
And while he was doing this the gunner told him he would have one 
satisfaction of the rogues ; and this was that he would make a mine 
of it, and see which way it had vent. Upon this he fetched two 
barrels of powder out of the ships, and placed them in the inside of 
the hollow of the cave, as far in as he durst go to carry them, and 
then, filling up the mouth of the cave where the tree stood, and ram- 
ming it sufficiently hard, leaving only a pipe or touch-hole, he gave 
fire to it, and stood at a distance to see which way it would operate, 
when, on a sudden, he found the force of the powder burst its way out 
among some bushes on the other side the little hill I mentioned, and 
that it came roaring out there as out of the mouth of a cannon ; 
immediately running thither we saw the effects of the powder. 

u First, we saw that there was the other mouth of the cave, which 
the powder had so torn and opened, that the loose earth was so fallen 
in again that nothing of shape could be discerned ; but there we saw 
what was become of the garrison of Indians too, who had given us all 
this trouble ; for some of them had no arms, some no legs, some no 
head, some lay half-buried in the rubbish of the mine, that is to say, 
in the loose earth that fell in ; and, in short, there was a miserable 
havoc made of them all, for we had good reason to believe not one of 
them that were in the inside could escape, but rather were shot out of 
the mouth of the cave like a bullet out of a gun." 

11* 



CHAPTEE XXIII. 

The Political Writers, continued. Junius — Burke. 

Bather more than twenty years had passed since the 
death of Swift, and, though party-feeling and excitement ran 
high, no political writer of unusual power had attracted 
attention, until there appeared in the Public Advertiser 
newspaper for January 21, 1769, a letter signed Juxius, 
when it was at once seen that a champion of no ordinary 
force had entered the arena. Written in a grave and weighty 
style, these letters, sixty-nine in number (besides those by the 
same writer under other signatures), extending over a period 
of nearly three years, exhibited a concentrated strength, a 
fixedness of purpose, a fierceness of passion, and a knowledge 
of political secrets, that astounded the public, and his victims 
the most of all. Junius aimed at no petty game, but attacked 
the ministers, and even the king himself, with the bitterest 
sarcasm and the most energetic denunciation. 

Every attempt was made to find out the author, but in 
vain. Never was secret so well preserved. The authorship 
of Swift's Drapier's Letters was almost immediately discov- 
ered, although he affected the style of an obscure tradesman ; 
but Junius, although using (so far as we know) no trick to 
mislead suspicion, and though he was evidently a person who 
mingled in important political affairs, and had access to the 
secrets of the government, and that, too, at a time when all 
men in the political world were watched by jealous eyes, has 
not been detected to the present time. 



JUNIUS. 251 

Doubtless this very mystery that hung about Junius 
tended greatly to increase his reputation; and to this day 
the secret has for many persons an absorbing interest. The 
weight of evidence seems in favor of their being the produc- 
tion of Sir Philip Francis (born 1741, died 1818), a gentleman 
of note in the political world ; but this can scarcely be said 
to be demonstrated. 

Junius resembles Swift in the masculine energy of his 
mind, in arrogance, in the fierceness of his internal passion, 
in the bitterness of his hate (so bitter that it is evidently 
more than mere patriotic indignation), and in his unrelenting 
vindictiveness ; but his elaborate, formal, and oratorical 
periods are not so effective as the incisive idiomatic style of 
Swift. Had they been contemporaries and arrayed against 
each other, it would have been a rare duel ; but we think 
Swift would have been an overmatch for Junius. 

Of the style of Junius two specimens will give a fair 
example. The first is from Letter XII, To the Duke of 
Grafton. 

" The character of the reputed ancestors of some men has made it 
possible for their descendants to be vicious in the extreme, without 
being degenerate. Those of your Grace, for instance, left no distress- 
ing examples of virtue even to their legitimate posterity; and yon 
may look back with pleasure to an illustrious pedigree, in which 
heraldry has not left a single good quality upon record to insult or 
upbraid you. You have better proofs of your descent, my Lord, tlnui 
the register of a marriage, or any troublesome inheritance of reputation. 
There are some hereditary strokes of character by which a family may 
be as clearly distinguished as by the blackest features of the human 
face. Charles the First lived and died a lrypocrite. Charles the 
Second was a hj'pocrite of another sort, and should have died on the 
same scaffold. At the distance of a century, we see their different 
characters happily revived and blended in your Grace. Sullen and 
severe, without religion, profligate without gayety, you live like Charles 
the Second, without being an amiable companion, and, for aught I 
know, may die as his father did, without the reputation of a martyr. 



252 THE POLITICAL WELTERS. 

" Your Grace, little anxious, perhaps, either for present or future 
reputation, will not desire to be handed down in these colors to poster- 
ity. You have reason to flatter yourself that the memory of your 
administration will survive even the forms of a constitution which 
our ancestors vainly hoped would be immortal ; and as for your per- 
sonal character, I will not, for the honor of human nature, suppose 
that you can wish to have it remembered. The condition of the 
present times is desperate indeed ; but there is a debt due to those who 
come after us; and it is the historians office to punish, though he 
cannot correct. I do not give you to posterity as a pattern to imitate, 
but as an example to deter ; and as your conduct comprehends every- 
thing that a wise or honest minister should avoid, I mean- to make you 
a negative instruction to your successors forever." 

From Letter XXIIL To Ms Grace the Dale of Bedford. 

" My Lord : You are so little accustomed to receive any mark of 
respect or esteem from the public, that if, in the following lines, a 
compliment or expression of applause should escape me, I fear you 
would consider it as a mockery of your established character, and, 
perhaps, an insult to your understanding. You have nice feelings, 
my Lord, if we may judge from your resentments. Cautious, there- 
fore, of giving offence, where you have so little deserved it, I shall 
leave the illustration of your virtues to other hands. Your friends 
have a privilege to play upon the easiness of your temper ; or, possibly, 
they are better acquainted with your good qualities than I am. You 
have done good by stealth. The rest is upon record. You have 
still left ample room for speculation, where panegyric is exhausted. 

"You are indeed a very considerable man. The highest rank, a 
splendid fortune, and a name, glorious till it was yours, were sufficient 
to have supported you with meaner abilities than I think you possess. 
From the first you derived a constitutional claim to respect ; from the 
second, a natural extensive authority; the last created a partial ex- 
pectation of hereditary virtues. The use you have made of these 
uncommon advantages might have been more honorable to yourself, 
but could not be more instructive to mankind." 

After sketching the character and actions of the Duke, 
Junius finally supposes him arrived at the close of his 

career. 

u Your friends will ask, perhaps, whither shall this unhappy old man 
retire ? Can he remain in the metropolis where his life has been so 



EDMUND BURKE. 253 

often threatened, and his palace so often attacked? .... He 
must create a solitude round his estate if he would avoid the face of 
reproach and derision ... At every town he enters, he must 
change his liveries and his name. Whichever way he flies, the hue 

and cry of the country pursues him 

" It is in vain, therefore, to shift the scene. You can no more fly 
from your enemies than from yourself. Persecuted abroad, you look 
into your own heart for consolation, and find nothing but reproaches 
and despair. But, my Lord, you may quit the field of business, though 
not the field of danger ; and though you cannot be safe, you may 
cease to be ridiculous. I fear you have listened too long to the advice 
of those pernicious friends with whose interests you have sordidly 
united your own, and for whom you have sacrificed everything that 
ought to be dear to a man of honor. They are still base enough to 
encourage the follies of your age, as they once did the vices of your 
youth. As little acquainted with the rules of decorum as with the 
laws of morality, they will not suffer you to profit by experience, nor 
even to consult the propriety of a bad character. Even now they 
tell you that life is no more than a dramatic scene in which the hero 
should preserve his consistency to the last ; and that, as you have lived 
without virtue, you should die without repentance." 

By far the greatest political writer and orator — and, indeed, 
in all respects most eminent genius of the latter half of this 
century — was Edmund Burke. He was born in Dublin in 
1730, but came to London when about twenty years of age, 
and passed nearly all the rest of his life in England, In 
1756 he published, A Vindication of Natural Society, a 
satirical parody of the style and philosophy of Lord Boling- 
broke, and in the same year his Inquiry into the Origin of 
our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. 

In 1761 he was appointed Private Secretary to the Chief 
Secretary for Ireland, and returned in this capacity to his 
native country, where he remained four years. In 1766 he 
became a member of Parliament, where he displayed in his 
speeches and other public duties, during twenty-eight years, 
that extraordinary intellect and splendid genius which 
amazed and dazzled his contemporaries, and still excite our 
admiration. 



251 THE POLITICAL WRITERS. 

His works, including is public speeches, are so numerous 
that we can mention but a few. His oration on American 
Taxation was delivered in 1774, at the time the American 
colonies were urging their complaints in Parliament ; that 
on Conciliation with America in 1775 ; and that on Mr. Fox's 
India Bill in 1783. His Reflections on the Revolution in 
France was published in 1790; his Appeal from the Old to 
the Neiv Whigs, in 1792 ; his Letters on a Regicide Peace, 
in 1796 and 1797. Perhaps the most splendid and renowned 
of all his efforts are the speeches delivered at the bar of the 
House of Lords, on the impeachment of Warren Hastings for 
maladministration in India. This trial, which commenced 
in 1788, and lasted seven years and three months, is perhaps 
the most famous on record for the magnitude of the interests 
involved, the gravity of the charges, and the extraordinary 
talent and eloquence which were exerted in its conduct 
and nothing could better display the gigantic intellect of 
Burke than the manner in which he has grasped such an 
overwhelming mass of evidence and law, in matters pertain- 
ing to the -customs, native laws, and habits of a strange 
country, and made all clear and intelligible, as a ground- 
work for his magnificent oratory. 

In elevation of soul, as well as in breadth of intellect, 
Burke far surpassed the other great political writers whom 
we have mentioned. They were fierce partisans ; Burke was 
a true and ardent patriot. It was not the triumph of any 
party that he desired, except as a means to secure the liberty 
and happiness of his countrymen ; and these he believed could 
be best secured by a liberal conservatism. Thus his voice 
was raised with equal vehemence against the encroachments 
of the crown and the revolutionary ideas of France. He 
saw that the tyranny of the mob was as fatal to true liberty 
as the tyranny of a court, and equally demanded the re- 
sistance of a genuine patriot; thus he laid himself open t:> 



EDMUZD BURKE. 255 

the charge of inconsistency by those who were too narrow- 
minded, or too much blinded by partisanship, to perceive the 
breadth and wisdom of his views. His generous attitude in 
relation to the American colonies entitles him to the respect 
of all Americans ; and there are no works on political sub- 
jects which may be more profitably studied by American 
youth than those of Burke. He died in 1797. 

One of the most eloquent of Burke's orations is that on 
the Debts of the Nabob of Arcot, an Indian prince. The 
English creditors of the Nabob, according to Burke's repre- 
sentation, had instigated various wrongs and breaches of 
faith toward the powerful prince Hyder Ali and his son, 
Tippoo Saib, w T ho finally avenged themselves by a ferocious 
invasion of the Carnatic, a district of Southern Hindustan. 
This invasion Burke thus describes : 

" When at length Hyder Ali found that he had to do with men who 
either would sign no convention, or whom no treaty and no signature 
could bind, and who were the determined enemies of human inter- 
course itself, he decreed to make the country possessed by these incor- 
rigible and predestinated criminals a memorable example to mankind. 
He resolved, in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious of such things, 
to leave the whole Carnatic an everlasting monument of vengeance, and 
to put perpetual desolation as a barrier between him and those against 
whom the faith which holds the moral elements of the world together 
was no protection. He became at length so confident of his force, so 
collected in his might, that he made no secret whatever of his dreadful 
resolution. Having terminated his disputes with every enemy, and 
eveiy rival, who buried their mutual animosities in their common 
detestation against the creditors of the Nabob of Arcot, he drew from 
every quarter, whatever a savage ferocity could add to his new rudi- 
ments in the arts of destruction ; and compounding all the materials 
of fury, havoc, and desolation, into one black cloud, he hung for a 
while on the declivities of the mountains. While the authors of all 
the evils were idly and stupidly gazing on this menacing meteor which 
blackened all their horizon, it suddenly burst, and poured down the 
whole of its contents upon the plains of the Carnatic. Then ensued a 
scene of woe, the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived, 
and which no tongue could adequately tell. All the horrors of war 



556 TEE POLITE: AL WRITERS. 

before known or heard of were mercy to that new havoc. A storm of 
universal fire blasted every field, consumed every house, destroyed 
every temple. The miserable inhabitants, flying from their flaming 
villages, in part were slaughtered ; others, without regard to sex. to 
age, to the respect of rank or sacreduess of function, fathers torn from 
their children, husbands from wives, enveloped in a whirlwind of 
cavalry, and amidst the goading spears of drivers, and the trampling 
of pursuing horses, were swept into captivity in an unknown and 
hostile land. Those who were able to evade this tempest, fled to the 
walled cities. But, escaping from fire, sword, and exile, they fell into 

the jaws of famine 

''For eighteen months, without intermission, this destruction raged 
from the gates of Madras to the gates of Tanjore ; and so completely 
did these masters in their art. Hyder Ali and his ferocious son, absolve 
themselves of their impious vow, that, when the British armies 
traversed, as they did. the Carnatic for hundreds of miles in all direc- 
tions, through the whole line of their march they did not see one man, 
not one woman, not one child, not one four-footed beast of any descrip- 
tion whatever. One dead, uniform silence reigned over the whole 
region.* 1 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The Historians. Hurne — Robertson — Gibbon. 

To write history as it should be written, is one of the most 
difficult tasks which man can undertake, and one which de- 
mands a combination of such rare and high qualities in the 
historian that it is scarcely possible they can be found united 
in any one person. 

For the mere chronicling of events is but the skeleton of 
history. And yet to do this well requires no ordinary talent. 
The historian must possess an exact knowledge of the time, 
and of his authorities, a clear judgment in the estimation of 
evidence, and a nice discrimination in doubtful points. He 
must add to these gifts a deep insight into human nature, a 
knowledge of the national characteristics of the people of 
whom he writes, and an intimate acquaintance with the 
manners, customs, modes of thought, and prevalent ideas of 
the times : indeed, he must be able, for the time being, to 
identify himself with them, and look with their eyes, not his 
own, or he can neither understand them himself nor make 
us understand them. And yet, with all this, he must avoid 
the bias of the partisan, or his work will be, not so much a 
history, as an indictment or a panegyric. 

It should be borne in mind that the object of the study of 
history is, not to stock the memory with the names of sover- 
eigns and the dates of battles, but to understand a certain 
portion of the life of the human race. And, to do this profita- 



258 THE HISTORIANS. 

bly, we must know, not merely what happened in the court 
or on the battle-field, but what was happening in the streets, 
in the houses, and in the minds of men. We must be shown 
why events, counsels, popular feeling, took this course and 
not that; we must be admitted behind the scenes, and not 
only see the working of the machinery, but look into the 
thoughts of the actors. It is only in this way that we can 
obtain a living knowledge of history, and feel the connection 
of the period we are studying, however remote, with that 
epoch in the life of the race to which we ourselves belong, 
and which is bound to the former by an unbroken chain of 
cause and effect. 

A critical and iminventive period, much concerned about 
the study of the past and forming a correct judgment there- 
upon, is a period favorable to the writing of history; and 
indeed we can hardly say that any genuine historical work 
was produced in England previously to the latter half of the 
eighteenth century. There were multitudes of chronicles — 
dry catalogues of events, strung together without discrimi- 
nation; or, if not dry, owing their vivacity rather to the 
feeling and imagination of the chronicler, than to any philo- 
sophical comprehension and exposition of his subject ; and 
there were treatises, like that of Sir Walter Ealeigh, r of higher 
pretensions indeed, and filled with reflections, but evincing 
no capacity for sifting the false or the improbable from the 
true, and referring all questions to preconceived theories on 
the part of the historian. 

The period of which we are now treating, however, showed 
an awakening to a higher conception of history, and, among 
some twenty historians of varied merit, produced three of 
high eminence, whose works are still regarded as classical. 

David Hume, a Scotchman, was born in 1711, and first 
distinguished himself by his writings in philosophy and 
metaphysics. At that time, as we have already had occasion 



DAVID HUME. 259 

to mention, Socinianisru, deism, and skepticism in various 
forms, were very rife ; but none of their defenders could 
compare with Hume in vigor of intellect, and none pushed 
their doctrines to such an extreme. Going beyond the 
mere materialists, he affirmed, and endeavored to prove, that 
no law could be discovered in nature, that the relation of 
cause and effect was a mere chimera of the imagination, and 
that the true attitude of philosophy was that of universal 
doubt. To the maintenance and clear logical demonstration 
of these and similar doctrines, he devoted all the strength of 
his great intellect, and showed a power of grappling w r ith the 
most abstruse questions which reanimated the philosophy 
of the time, and has influenced metaphysical studies to this 
day. 

In 1754 Hume appeared before the public in the character 
of a historian, with the first volume of his History of Great 
Britain, including the reigns of James I. and Charles I. 
This was followed, in 1757, by the history of the Common- 
wealth and the two following reigns; and soon afterwards 
he completed the work, by the history of the time from the 
Invasion of Caesar to the end of the Tudor dynasty. 

Hume w r as a vehement partisan of the Stuarts, or, as was 
called at the time, a "Jacobite n (from Jacobus, the Latinised 
name of James II.), and his works were consequently unac- 
ceptable to the friends of the house of Hanover, then occupy- 
ing the English throne; and his first volume was received 
with violent hostility and invective. As the work progressed, 
however, its real merits became manifest, even to the Whigs, 
and it soon attained great popularity. Apart from his par- 
tisanship, the work is candid, clear, thoughtful, and original, 
and, as the first attempt to treat historical questions in a 
philosophical way, opened a new path for English history. 
Its title to be considered a classic, however, chiefly rests upon 
the strength, lucidity, and idiomatic beauty of his style, and 



260 THE HISTOPJAXS. 

the picturesqueness and vivacity of descriptions and narra- 
tive, in which qualities it is not surpassed by any work of 
the kind in the language. Hume died in 1776. 

As a specimen of his style, we select his character of 
Charles II. : 

" If we survey the character of Charles II., in the different lights 
which it will admit of, it will appear various, and give rise to differ- 
ent and even opposite sentiments. TVhen considered as a companion, 
he appears as the most amiable and engaging of men; and iudeed, in 
this view, his deportment must be allowed altogether unexceptionable. 
His love of raillery was so tempered with good breeding that it was 
never offensive ; his propensity to satire was so checked with discre- 
tion that his friends never dreaded their becoming the object of it ; his 
wit, to use the expression of one who knew him well and who was him- 
self a good judge, could not be said so much to be very refined or ele- 
vated, qualities apt to beget jealousy and apprehension in company, 
as to be a plain, gaining, well-bred, recommending kind of wit. And 
though perhaps he talked more than strict rules of behavior might 
permit, men were so pleased with the affable, communicative deport- 
ment of the monarch, that they always went away contented, both 
with him and with themselves. This, indeed, is the most shining 
part of the king's character : and he seems to have been sensible of 
it ; for he was fond of dropping the formality of state, and of relaps- 
ing, every moment, into the companion. 

11 In the duties of private life, his conduct, though not free from ex- 
ception, was, in the main, laudable. He was a civil, obliging husband, 
a friendly brother, an indulgent father, and a good-natured master. 
The voluntary friendships, however, which this prince contracted, 
nay, even his sense of gratitude, were feeble; and he never attached 
himself to any of his ministers or courtiers with a sincere affection. 
He believed them to have no motive in serving him but self-interest ; 
and he was still ready, in his turn, to sacrifice them to present ease or 
convenience. 

11 With a detail of his private character, we must set bounds to our 
panegjuic on Charles. The other parts of his conduct may admit 
of some apology, but can deserve small applause. He was, indeed, so 
much fitted for private life, preferably to public, that he even possessed 
order, frugality, and economy in the former ; was profuse, thoughtless, 
and negligent in the latter. TVhen we consider him as a sovereign, 
his character, though not altogether destitute of virtue, was, in the 
main, dangerous to his people, and dishonorable to himself. Xegli- 



WILLIAM ROBERTSON. 261 

gent of the interests of the nation, careless of its glory, averse to its 
religion, jealous of its liberty, lavish of its treasure, sparing only of 
its blood, he exposed it, by his measures, though he ever appeared but 
iu sport, to the danger of a furious civil war, aud even to the ruin and 
ignominy of a foreign conquest. Yet may all these enormities, if fairly 
aud candidly examined, be imputed, in a great measure, to the indo- 
lence of his temper : a fault which, however unfortunate in a mon- 
arch, it is impossible for us to regard with great severity. 

" It has been remarked of Charles, that 4 he never said a foolish 
thing, nor ever did a wise one ; ' a censure which, though too far carried, 
seems to have some foundation in his character and deportment. 
When the king was informed of this saying, he observed that the 
matter was easily accounted for; for that his discourse was his own, 
his actions were the ministry's. 

Dr. William Kobertsox, also a Scotchman, was born 
in 1722. In 1759 he published his History of Scotland, ten 
years later his History of the Emperor Charles V., and in 
1776 his History of America. These works were all most 
favorably welcomed by the public. They showed a compre- 
hension of the real character of history, and were composed 
in a style which was grave without being pompous, learned, 
yet not pedantic, and elegant without affectation. If they 
lacked the vivacity and humor of Hume, and the immense 
erudition of Gibbon, they were, for that very reason, more 
adapted to please the public taste ; and for a time bore away 
the palm from all competitors. 

More recent investigations and discoveries have deprived 
these works of a portion of their authority as history, but 
they are still read with pleasure, and for grace and elegance 
of style retain the position of classics. 

The third eminent historian of this period selected a 
vaster field for his labors, and was destined to achieve a more 
illustrious reputation. Edward Gibbon was born in 1737. 
As a boy, he suffered much from ill-health, which gave him 
opportunities for indulging, almost without restraint, in read- 
ing; and his taste led him to prefer works of history, which 



262 THE HISTORIANS. 

he devoured without discrimination. At the age of fifteen 
he was sent to Oxford, with, as he says, u a stock of erudi- 
tion that might haye puzzled a doctor, and a degree of igno- 
rance of which a school-boy would have been ashamed." He 
derived little profit from the teachings of the University, 
pursuing his own courses of reading and of amusement 
unchecked. The study of some of Bossuet's works deter- 
mined him to embrace the Eoman Catholic faith, of which 
he made profession, and was in consequence excluded from 
the University. 

At this change of faith his father was much chagrined, 
and sent him to Lausanne in Switzerland, to reside in the 
family of a Calvinistic minister, w T hose teachings soon 
brought the unstable proselyte back to the Protestant faith. 
He pursued his studies in this town with better judgment, 
and formed the acquaintance of several distinguished men 
of learning. While here he was deeply impressed by the 
personal and mental charms of Mademoiselle Curchod, after- 
wards the wife of. the celebrated finance minister ISTecker, 
and mother of Madame de Stael. The lady, he tells us, in 
his amusingly stately account of this episode of his life, was 
not indifferent to his suit, but his father was obdurate, and 
the affair was broken off. 

His first attempt in authorship was a small volume in the 
French language (which his long residence at Lausanne had 
made more familiar to him than his mother-tongue), entitled 
Essai sur V Etude de la Litterature, published in 1761, which 
attracted more notice abroad than in his own country. His 
great ambition, however, was to distinguish himself as a 
historian. 

In 1764, having prepared himself by preliminary studies, 
he made the tour of Italy, where the remains of Eoman 
grandeur powerfully impressed his mind, and gave a definite 
direction and object to his literary aspirations. He says in 



EDWABD GIBBON. 263 

his Autobiography, "I can neither forget nor express the 
strong emotions which agitated my mind, as I first approached 
and entered the Eternal City. After a sleepless night, I trod 
with a lofty step the ruins of the Forum ; each memorable 
spot, where Eomulus stood, or Tully spoke, or Caesar fell, was 
at once present to my eye; and several days of intoxication 
were lost before I could descend to a cool and minute inves- 
tigation." "-It was at Eome, on the 15th of October, 1764, 
as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the 
barefooted friars were singing vespers in the temple of Ju- 
pite'fc that the idea of writing the Decline and Fall of the 
city first started to my mind." 

After some years spent in preparatory studies, during 
Which time he held a seat in Parliament, in 1776 the first 
-volume of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
jErnpire was published, and at once placed the author in the 
Very first rank of historians. So great was the demand for 
the work, that in a few days it passed to the third edition, 
while it brought him high compliments from the principal 
men of letters of the day, Hume and Eobertson especially 
being most generously flattering in their praise. Many per- 
sons, however, while admitting the extraordinary merit of 
the work, were, not unnaturally, offended with the tone of 
those chapters in which he treats of the Christian faith and 
Church, and their propagation and extension; and many 
fierce attacks were directed against the historian, to which 
he gave scarcely any reply. 

The second and third volumes were received with undi- 
minished favor, and he now conceived the plan of extending 
the work, which originally was to have closed with the fall 
of the Western Empire, to the taking of Constantinople by 
the Turks in 1453, which extinguished the Empire of the 
East, and at which point modern history commences. To 
be able to devote himself uninterruptedly to this task, he 



2 64 THE HISTORIANS. 

once more took up his residence at Lausanne, where his great 
undertaking was completed on the 27th of June, 1787. It 
was in the night, as he tells us, "between the hours of eleven 
and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page, in a 
summer-house in my garden. After laying down my pen, I 
took several turns in a lerceau, or covered walk of acacias, 
which commands a prospect of the country, the lakr, ?>nd 
the mountains. The air was temperate, the sky was serene, 
the silver orb of the moon was reflected from the waters, 
and all nature was silent. I will not dissemble the 
emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, per- 
haps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon 
humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my uhjnd 
by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of mv 
and agreeable companion, and that, whatsoever might be th& 
future fate of my history, the life of the historian must b » 
short and precarious." 

The seven years which intervened between the completion* 
of his great work and his death, he spent partly in Switzer- 
land and partly in his native country, enjoying the society 
and friendship of the most distinguished of his countrymen. 
His health, however, gradually declined, and he died in En- 
gland on January 15, 1794. 

It is scarcely possible to over-estimate the value of Gib- 
bon's magnificent work. When we consider the grandeur 
of the plan and scope, embracing thirteen centuries and 
every part of the Roman world, the learning, as wonderful 
for its accuracy as for its vastness, the arrangement by which 
a symmetrical whole is organized out of so enormous a 
mass of details, the general candor and impartiality of the 
author's judgments, the clearness of his statements, the vivid- 
ness of the descriptions and narrations, and the elegance of 
the style, we can find no other work entitled to dispute with 
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the first place 



EDWARD GIBBON. 265 

among works of history. Critics who have detected minor 
errors, or have approached the work in a spirit of hostility, 
have not been able to refuse their tribute of admiration. So 
thoroughly has Gibbon made himself master of his subject, 
and so completely has he accomplished his gigantic task, 
that no author has yet ventured to go over the same ground; 
and as we can scarcely expect so extensive a recovery of 
original matter as to require the history of that time to be 
re-written, it seems more than probable that this will remain 
to all time the standard authority on the periods of which 
it treats ; a distinction which it alone enjoys among all his- 
tories by modern authors. 

The style of Gibbon has been considered too stately and 
pompous by those who prefer the vivacious manner of more 
recent historians, which too often degenerates into the zeal 
of an advocate, or the triviality of an anecdotist. We can 
only say that Ave can conceive no style better fitted for the 
philosophic calm and dignity of history, nor more in har- 
mony with the august design. 

The only really serious charge which has been brought 
against Gibbon, has been his manner of referring to or dis- 
cussing Christianity; and here, we admit, he is greatly in 
fault. It is true the office of the historian is different from 
that of the theologian ; and he is bound to dismiss all per- 
sonal bias from his mind, and allow a fair hearing to the 
opponents as well as the defenders of Christianity. But 
Gibbon discusses these questions in the temper of an assail- 
ant, not of a judge ; and his evident hostility is aggravated 
by an affectation of respect which turns to unbecoming- 
irony. Happily, the animosity is so obvious, that the reader 
can always be upon his guard and make due allowance for 
it; but it is greatly to be regretted, not so much for any 
injury it can do, but for being the only grave defect in an 
almost perfect work. 

12 



206 THE HISTORIANS. 

We select, as a specimen of Gibbon's style, an extract from 
the passage in which lie describes, the oppression of the 
Eoman people under the Emperors between Augustus and 
Trajan. 

" Under the reign of these monsters, the slavery of the Romans was 
accompanied with two peculiar circumstances, the one occasioned by 
their former liberty, the other by their extensive conquests, which ren- 
dered their condition more completely wretched than that of the victims 
of tyranny in any other age or countiy. From these causes were 
derived, 1. The exquisite sensibility of the sufferers; and, 2. The im- 
possibility of escaping from the hand of the oppressor. 

" Oppressed beneath the weight of their own corruption and of mili- 
tary violence, the Eomans for a long while preserved the sentiments, or 
at least the ideas, of their free-born ancestors. The education of Helvi- 
dius and Thrasea, of Tacitus and Pliny, was the same as that of Cato 
and Cicero. From Grecian philosophy they had imbibed the justest and 
most liberal notions of the dignity of human nature, and the origin of 
civil society. The history of their own country had taught them to 
revere a free, a virtuous, and a victorious Commonwealth ; to abhor 
the successful crimes of Caesar and Augustus ; and inwardly to despise 
those tyrants whom they adored with the most abject flattery. As 
magistrates and senators they were admitted into the great council 
which had once dictated laws to the earth, whose name was still a 
sanction to the acts of the monarch, and whose authority was so often 
prostituted to the vilest purposes of tyranny. Tiberius, and those em- 
perors who adopted his maxims, attempted to disguise their murders 
by the formalities of justice, and perhaps enjoyed a secret pleasure in 
rendering the Senate their accomplice as well as their victim. By this 
assembly the last of the Eomans were condemned for imaginary crimes 
and real virtues. Their infamous accusers assumed the language of 
independent patriots, who arraigned a dangerous citizen before the 
tribunal of his country ; and the public service was rewarded by riches 
and honors. The servile judges professed to assert the majesty of the 
Commonwealth, violated in the person of its first magistrate, whose 
clemency they most applauded, when they trembled the most at his 
inexorable and impending cruelty. The tyrant beheld their baseness 
with just contempt, and encountered their secret sentiments of detesta- 
tion with sincere and avowed hatred for the whole body of the Senate. 

M The division of Europe into a number of independent States, con- 
nected, however, with each other by the general resemblance of 
religion, language, and manners, is productive of the most beneficial 



EDWARD GIBBOK 267 

consequences to the liberty of mankind. A modern tyrant who should 
find no resistance either in his own breast or in his people, would soon 
experience a gentle restraint from the example of his equals, the dread 
of present censure, the advice of his allies, and the apprehension of his 
enemies. The object of his displeasure, escaping from the narrow 
limits of his dominions, would easily obtain, in a happier climate, a 
secure refuge, a new fortune adequate to his merit, the freedom of 
complaint, and perhaps the means of revenge. But the empire of the 
Romans filled the world ; and when that empire fell into the hands of 
a single person, the world became a safe and dreary prison for his 
enemies. The slave of Imperial despotism, whether he was condemned 
to dr,ag his gilded chain in Rome and the Senate, or to wear out a life 
of exile on the barren rock of Seriphos, or the frozen banks of the 
Danube, expected his fate in silent despair. To resist was fatal, and 
it was impossible to fly. On every side he was encompassed with a 
vast extent of sea and land which he could never hope to traverse 
without being discovered, seized, and restored to his irritated master. 
Beyond the frontiers, his anxious view could discover nothing ex- 
cept the ocean, inhospitable deserts, hostile tribes of barbarians of 
fierce manners and unknown language, or dependent kings who would 
gladly purchase the Emperor's protection by the sacrifice of an obnox- 
ious fugitive. ' Wherever you are,' said Cicero to the exiled Marcellus, 
4 remember that you are equally within the power of the conqueror.' " 



CHAPTEE XXV. 

Origin of the Novel— Greek and Latin Novels— Romances of Chiv- 
alry — The Italian Novels. 

The novel or fictitious narrative is a natural outgrowth of 
the epic poem, which, again, was the offspring of the hymn. 
At the various religious celebrations of the ancients, an im- 
portant part of the worship consisted of a recital of the ex- 
ploits of the god or hero who was the object of adoration, and 
this recital was made in a form of verse more resembling the 
prose of ordinary speech than the hymns which were sung by 
the chorus; thus establishing a difference in form between 
recitative and lyric poetry. These recitations were gradually 
developed into the epic poem, the interest in which was so 
great that it was a favorite entertainment of all classes of the 
people to have the deeds of heroes recited to them on occa- 
sions of public festivity ; and travelling minstrels went from 
town to town to supply, from an inventive brain or a well- 
stored memory, the popular demand. 

When the early faith in the heroic and mythological legends 
began to be shaken, it was still found that the narrative lost 
little or none of its interest* ; and the rhapsodist who intro- 
duced new features and episodes into the traditional story 
found, that if these pleased by their novelty, he was not 
likely to be questioned for his authority. The religious 
spirit had given place to the pleasures of the imagination, 
paradoxical though it may seem that the intellect can take 
pleasure in statements known to be false. 



GREEK NOVELS, 269 

From the amplification of old traditions once believed true, 
to the invention of new ones known to be false, was but a 
slight step ; but it is the step which divides the epic from the 
novel. This step seems to have been first taken in the East, 
where we find not merely gigantic epics, but heroic and even 
domestic novels of great antiquity, in the literature of India, 
Persia, and China. As these stories were no longer chanted, 
but simply narrated, the metrical form was no longer neces- 
sary, and the transition from the epic poem to the prose 
novel was complete. 

With the extension of the art of fiction, three broad dis- 
tinctions became apparent in the subjects and treatment, 
giving rise to the three great divisions of fiction. The char- 
acters and incidents might be above and superior to the 
ordinary level of humanity, as in the epic poem, thus giv- 
ing us the heroic romance; or on its ordinary level, as in 
the novel of real life; or below it, as in the picaresco* 
novels. These three divisions, it will be seen, corre- 
spond to the three dramatic forms of tragedy, comedy, and 
farce. 

Prose fiction passed from Persia to Greece by the way of 
Asia Minor, where the Greek cities were tributaries to the 
Persian king, and many Oriental customs and tastes took 
root. The Greek city of Miletus gave its name to a class of 
this literature, now lost, the Milesian Tales, which, from the 
references made to them by ancient writers, would seem to 
have been chiefly love-stories of not very strict morality. 

No Greek romance or novel of an earlier date than the 
Christian era has reached us.f Perhaps the earliest of which 

* Picaresco, a word applied by the Spaniards to the tales of thieves, 
sharpers, and other low characters, in which their literature is very 
rich. It is derived from picaro, a thief. Guzman de Alfarache, Gil Bias, 
and Count Fathom, are well-known specimens of the picaresco novel. 

f We refer, of course, to the pure romance, and not ethical fictions 
like the Cyropcedia. 



270 RISE OF TEE XOYEE 

we have any remains is an epitome or summary of incidents 
in The Marvels of TJiule. or the loves and adventures of 
Deinias and Dercyllis, written by Antonius Diogenes, an 
author of uncertain date. TVe have also an epitome of the 
Balylonica, or adventures of Ehodanes and Sinonis. by Iam- 
bliehus. a writer of the second century. Time, which has 
robbed us of many better things, has preserved us entire the 
jZathiopiea, or adventure- of Theagenes and Chariclea. written 
by Heliodorus. a Phoenician by birth, and Bishop of Tricca 
in Thessaly. who lived about the close of the fourth century. 
Like the rest, this earliest Greek novel which has reached us 
is a tale of the wanderings and adventures of two lovers. 
It has the merit of unexceptionable morality, in which some 
critics see the influence of Christianity; and the defect of 
being extremely tedious, notwithstanding which it has 
found many admirers, especially in France. Some of its 
scenes gave hints to the French and Italian writers of the 
seventeenth century ; and it is said that Eacine. when a stu- 
dent at Port Royal, read it by stealth until he knew it by 
heart ; a feat in which he is not likely ever to find an imita- 
tor. 

Heliodorus was succeeded by several other writers of ficti- 
tious love-stories, more or less in imitation of the ^Etftiojn'ca, 
The best of these are Achilles Tatius. about 450 a.d., the 
author of the adventures of Clitoplion and Leucippe, and 
Longus, who wrote the pastoral romance of Daphnis and 
Chloe. These novels are superior in vivacity and interest to 
the work of Heliodorus; and that of Longus especially is 
charming for its pastoral simplicity, which has made it a 
pattern for this kind of composition in later times: but they 
are both disfigured by scenes of too great license. From 
this time to the appearance of the romance of chivalry, vre 
find no works of prose fiction worthy of mention. 

In the picaresco style there are still extant several witty 



BOM AN NOVELS 271 

but licentious tales ascribed to Lucian, a brilliant and ele- 
gant Greek writer of the second century. Born in Syria, 
lie so thoroughly caught the style of the best Greek authors, 
that his language rivals in elegance and purity the masters 
of Attic prose ; and in wit he disputes the palm with Aris- 
tophanes. 

The Komans, who were gifted with but little originality 
in literary production, imitated the Greeks in this depart- 
ment also. We have still remaining some fragments of a 
very witty picaresco romance, the Satiricon, usually but 
erroneously attributed to Petronius Arbiter, a favorite cour- 
tier of the Emperor Nero, and a refined and elegant voluptuary. 
This story recites the adventures and mishaps of some young 
vagabonds in the country about Naples, and is written w T ith 
great spirit and elegance of diction, but, unfortunately, with 
even greater licentiousness. It gives some curious pictures of 
domestic and rural life in the south of Italy in (probably) the 
first or second century of our era ; and, as it is precisely on 
these points that authors of that period leave us mostly in the 
dark, it is to be regretted that we have not the entire work, 
especially as it seems probable that the parts which have 
been preserved are the worst of the whole book. 

A combination of the picaresco and the heroic romance is 
found in the Golden Ass of Apuleius, who wrote in the sec- 
ond century. The influence of the East is perceptible in 
the various scenes of magic introduced in this fanciful 
story, which has been a great favorite with later novelists. 
It contains many episodes, the best known being the 
charming fable of Cupid and Psyche, which has furnished 
the theme to so many poets, painters, and sculptors. 

All these works of fiction, however late the date of their 
composition, belong in spirit to the ages of paganism, and no 
trace of the influence of Christianity can be perceived in them. 
This first appears in the true romances, or stories of chivalry, 



272 BISE OF THE NOVEL. 

many centuries later ; and of these, the earliest were those 
which referred to King Arthur and his Knights of the Eound 
Table, in which a chivalric form and dress were given to old 
Celtic legends of Britain and Brittany. Of these the prin- 
cipal are the story of Merlin, the wizard and counsellor of 
the king; the Quest of the San Graal ;* Perceval ; Lance- 
lot du Lac, the king's most valiant knight ; Tristan and 
Ysolde, and finally the Morte $ Arthur, relating the over- 
throw of that prince and his knights in a great battle in 
which the flower of Britain's chivalry perished. 

The romances next in order to those above mentioned are 
those in which are celebrated the exploits of Charlemagne 
and his Paladins. They are founded partly upon the old 
chronicle attributed to Turpin, containing an account of 
that monarch's invasion and conquest of the Peninsula of 
Spain, and upon other chronicles of his expedition to the 
Holy Land. Like those of the Eound Table, these latter 
romances were, many of them, written first in verse, by 
those JSTorman minstrels who, after Normandy had fallen 
under the dominion of the French crown, henceforth turned 
from Arthur to the great emperor. Their difference from 
the romances relating to Arthur is not very great; one 
feature being that they assign a more noble and chivalrous 
character to the Saracens, as contrasted with the ferocity of 
the Saxons, the enemies of the hero of the Eound Table. 

Thus far the heroes of romance were real or traditionary. 
The traditions and chronicles relating to Arthur and Char- 
lemagne having been exhausted, the Portuguese and Span- 
iards, for lack of real, created imaginary, heroes, whose 
enemies were the Turks, and the story of whose deeds con- 
sequently abounded in Oriental fable and adventure. The 

* The San Graal, or Holy Graal, was believed to be a cup of emerald 
containing the blood which flowed from, the pierced side of the Saviour. 
It brought great prosperity to the land which contained it. 



ROMANCES OF CHIVALRY. 2T3 

first of the romances of this sort is Amadis de Gaul, written 
by a Portuguese military officer. Its success produced num- 
berless imitations, which followed their original with scrupu- 
lous exactness. The loves of Amadis the Child of the Sea, 
and the fair Oriana, are told with admirable felicity. The 
succeeding romances are founded upon the adventures of 
their descendants. This story also furnished characters and 
scenes to both the French and Italian dramas. There are, 
however, other romances of the Peninsula besides those 
founded upon the exploits of Amadis and his descendants ; 
such as Palmerin de Oliva, its more celebrated namesake, 
Palmerin of England, and two others in the dialect of Cata- 
lonia, Tirante the White and Partenopex of Blois. 

The last of the romances of chivalry are those whose 
heroes are those of antiquity, Achilles, Jason, Hercules, 
Alexander, and others. The great storehouses from which 
the materials for these tales were drawn were the Chronicle 
of Guido de Colonna, compiled in the latter part of the 
thirteenth century, and a metrical production called Les 
Cent Histoires de Troye en Rime, written in the fourteenth 
century. In these romances the manners of Gothic times 
are freely applied to these ancient heroes, and the poets and 
sages become the necromancers and wizards of the Middle 
Ages. The most distinguished of these latter personages was 
the poet Virgil. So often had he been represented in these 
romances as engaging in enchantments, that a belief arose, 
which continued for ages, that he was the greatest of wizards. 

These were the last of the romances of chivalry. When 
the age of knighthood passed away, they ceased to be pro- 
duced. And yet, they not only gave the most important 
and benign impulses to literature, but they served to inspire 
the Italian poets and our Chaucer and Spenser to the com- 
position of those great works which will always receive the 
admiration of mankind. 

12* 



274 BISE OF THE XOVEL. 

But the country which, of all in Europe, abounded the 
most in prose fictions in the early years of that department 
of literature, was Italy. They were, however, of a kind far 
differing from the romances of chivalry. There was nothing 
in the natural character of the Italians to suggest stories 
such as those which were inspired by the war-like deeds of 
Arthur and Charlemagne. Italian prowess, whenever it 
existed at all. was exerted in the wars of the several petty 
States into which the country was divided, and could not, 
therefore, be compared with that which had been expended 
in the great wars against the Saxons and the Saracens. 
Moreover, the great masters of Italian literature occupied 
themselves with work of a very different character, and left 
these romances to inferior writers. 

The Italian novels, though contemporary with the romances 
of chivalry, were of very different origin. There are several 
sources from which the materials for the oldest of them were 
drawn. Many of them are from the romances of the Greeks 
before mentioned, but far the greater number are from those 
ancient collections of tales which had come from the East. 

1. The oldest of these collections is the Eo.l.ila v. Damnalu 
said to be the work of Bidpai. or Pilpay. a Brahmin. It was 
brought from India by a Persian physician, and has been 
translated into all the languages of the civilised world. It 
consists mostly of fables. 

2. The Seven Wise Masters, as it is called in English, is 
another of these storehouses, the prototype of which is said 
to be the Parables of Sandabar. an Indian philosopher. 

3. The Gesta Bomanorum. There are two works of this 
kind : one written in Europe, and the other in England, both 
of them in Latin, the latter being an imitation of the former. 
It is from the English Gesta that some of the characters in 
our early dramas are taken, among others the Merchant of 
Venice. The continental Gesta was written about the middle 



ITALIAN NO VELS. 2 T 5 

of the fourteenth century. It contains a vast number of 
tales, apologues, and legends of saints which are related in the 
lives of Eonian knights. 

4. The Fabliaux of France. These were written in the . 
period from the middle of the twelfth to that of the four- 
teenth century by the Trouveres of the North of France. 
These also were drawn mostly from Eastern sources. 

5. The Cento Xovelle Antiche, founded upon episodes from 
the romances of chivalry, upon the Fabliaux, upon the ancient 
chronicles of Italy, and upon incidents of recent date. They 
are one hundred in number, and exerted a greater influence 
upon the English drama than all of the ancient collections. 

It was to the Fabliaux that Boccacio is more indebted than 
to any other source for the materials with which he con- 
structed that elaborate w T ork, the Decameron, of witich an 
account has already been given. 

The remaining novelists of Italy w r ere mostly imitators of 
Boccacio. The most distinguished are Sachetti, Ser Giovanni, 
Cinthio, and Bandello. These also, from their numberless 
inventions, furnished Shakespeare and our other dramatists 
with abundant materials. Thus the story of Othello and 
Desdemona is taken from one of Cinthio's tales : so also was 
that of Measure far Measure ; while the humorous scenes of 
The Merry Wives of Windsor were suggested by one of the 
stories of Ser Giovanni. 

The translations of the Italian novels, and the Spanish 
picaresco romances, such as Lazarillo de Tonnes. Guzman de 
Alfa r ache, La Picara Justina, and others, became very 
popular in England, and diverted the taste of the people 
from the romances of chivalry, which began -to be looked 
upon as dull and old-fashioned. The Italian novels espe- 
cially were much imitated by writers of inferior ability. We 
have already mentioned Lyly and his Euphues. He in his 
turn was imitated by Thomas Lodge, in the story of Rosa- 



276 RISE OF THE NOVEL. 

lynde (1590) and by Eobert Greene in the History ofDorastus 
and Fawnia. The former of these works is supposed to 
have given Shakespeare the design of As You Like It, and 
the latter of the Winter's Tale. After the Kestoration, the 
Euphuistic style having fallen into disuse, several writers 
arose whose productions were imitations of the style of the 
French heroic romances of Gomberville, Calprenede, and 
Madame Scuderi. The most distinguished of these writers 
was Koger Boyle, Earl of Orrery, whose Parthenissa, though 
now never read, was once a very popular work. The heroic 
romance being found to be unsuited to the manners of the 
gay courtiers and ladies by whom the " merry monarch " was 
surrounded, lighter and smaller works began to be intro- 
duced, which illustrated contemporary manners. Such were 
the Atalantis of Mrs. Manley, the novels of Mrs. Behn and 
Mrs. Heywood, which, to suit the current tastes of the day, 
w T ere distinguished for being mostly filled with the scandal 
of fashionable society. 

In this age of general profligacy in literature and manners 
arose a man who, though unlearned and poor, wrote the only 
remarkable prose fiction of his generation. This w T as John 
Bun y an. He was born at Elstow in 1628, spent his youth 
in profligacy, became a dissenting minister when he grew up, 
and in the midst of his itinerant preaching, was apprehended 
and put in prison, where he lay twelve years, from 1660 to 
1672. By the intercession of the Bishop of London, he was 
released at the end of this time, immediately resumed his 
preaching, and continued it until his death, in 1688. 

While he lay in prison, he wrote The Pilgrim's Progress, 
an allegorical romance, in which is described the journey of 
a Christian from the City of Destruction to the Heavenly 
Jerusalem. Though this work was doubtless suggested by 
the many spiritual romances which, in France and elsewhere, 
had preceded it, it can claim almost entire originality. No 



JOHN BUNTAK 277 

romance has ever been so popular with eyery variety of 
readers as the Pilgrim's Progress. Its great merit consists 
in the vivid and natural way in which he describes the trials 
and temptations of a humble believer, in an allegory so plain, 
and in language so homely, that it is intelligible to the simplest 
minds, who find in it their own experiences described and 
wrought into a story. The richly idiomatic style has also 
much contributed to its popularity. Another allegory in 
the same vein, called The Holy War, has been less popular ; in 
fact, the subject would not bear a second treatment in the 
same method. 

Of Daniel Defoe we have already spoken under the head 
of political writers. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

The Novelists of the latter half of the Eighteenth Century— Richard- 
son — Fielding — Smollett. 

The originator of the modern English novel is Samuel 
Richardsox. He was born in the year 1689, and was by 

business a printer and bookseller. It was not until he was 
fifty years of age that he entered upon the field of author- 
ship, when he brought out his novel of Pamela* or Virtue 
Rewarded, in the form of a series of letters. In this work 
are shown the trials and temptations of a beautiful and vir- 
tuous girl in a humble station, servant in the family of a 
young man of fortune. Her immaculate virtue, exemplary 
piety, and great good sense, ultimately prevail : and her 
tempter becomes her respectful lover, and finally her devoted 
husband. This story, though of prodigious length, was 
immensely popular, and encouraged the author to a second 
attempt. In Clarissa Harlowe, a work of greater power and 
interest than Pamela, he again draws a model of female 
virtue, but in a higher station, more sorely beset and more 
cruelly tried, and finally falling an innocent victim into the 
snares of a villain. 

After the appearance of this work in 1748, Richardson 
found himself the most popular author in England, espe- 
cially with the female sex. whose sympathies with his heroine 
had been as unbounded as they were extravagantly expressed. 
Such a personality had he given to Clarissa, that his readers 
felt their sympathies engaged as for a real person: and 



HEFRT FIELDING. 279 

during the appearance of the work, which came out in vol- 
umes, the author was overwhelmed with letters from readers, 
imploring him to rescue the heroine from her perils and not 
let her fall by the arts of her pursuer, Lovelace. 

In his third work, Sir Charles Grandison, published in 
1753, Eichardson endeavored to draw a picture of a perfect 
Christian gentleman, but the success was not equal to that 
of his other works. Grandison is too ostentatiously virtuous, 
too monotonously excellent, to have the air of reality ; and 
the reader wearies of his noble sentiments, his fine phrases, 
and grand attitudes. 

Grandison was the last of Richardson's works, and he 
died in 1761. 

While great praise must be accorded to Eichardson for the 
purity and nobility of the morals which he practised as well 
as inculcated, and which, without doubt, exerted an immense 
influence for good with the generation that so eagerly de- 
voured his works, the critic must also accord him no mean 
place among men of genius. In no author, previous to his 
time, had there been any attempt at this close study of the 
human heart, this minute analysis of motives and conduct in 
the ordinary as well as the extraordinary events of life. In 
his writings the personages lay bare the inmost secrets of 
their breasts and the most hidden springs of their actions; 
and the reader cannot but admit that he has, with wonderful 
insight, given the very truth of nature. He had also no 
inconsiderable tragic power ; but his great defect is a want 
of humor, without which a long story of ordinary life is felt 
— at the present day, at least — to be intolerably wearisome. 
Hence the neglect which has overtaken works which were 
once the delight of every age and all classes of society. 

As Eichardson was the father of the serious novel, so was 
Henry Fielding the father of the comic. He was born m 
1707 of a family descended from the Earl of Denbigh, who, 



280 THE NOVELISTS. 

according to Gibbon, drew their origin from the house of 
Habsburg. On arriving at manhood, finding himself with- 
out means of support, he went to London, where he led a 
rather wild life, and for some years gained a poor subsistence 
by writing for the stage. His plays were of little value, 
although he acquired some reputation by his parodies on the 
tragic drama. He married a young woman of some property, 
but soon squandered her fortune, and after a vain attempt to 
succeed in the law, betook himself to literature as a profes- 
sion. 

In 1742 he brought out his novel of Joseph Andreivs, 
intended as a parody of Bichardson's Pamela. Joseph, the 
hero, is Pamela's brother, who is stimulated by his sister's 
splendid example to become an equally glorious model of 
male virtue. He also is exposed to the fiercest temptations, 
usually of a grotesque kind, and comes out of them all 
nobly. The work, however, is much more than a mere 
parody; it is a masterpiece of humorous narrative, and 
contains one of the happiest characters in fiction — that of 
Parson Adams. 

A very good specimen of the parody is given in a scene 
in which the exemplary Pamela is shown pluming herself in 
the consciousness of her virtue and of its reward. Squire 
Booby, Pamela's husband, has remonstrated with Joseph for 
remaining firm in his engagement to a girl who, however 
great her merits, is not what he considers a proper match for 
his brother-in-law. Joseph replies with spirit : 

" * I am resolved on no account to quit my dear Fanny ; no, though. 
I could raise her as high above her present station as you have raised 
my sister.' 

" ' Your sister, as well as myself,' said Booby, ' are greatly obliged to 
you for the comparison ; but, sir, she is not worthy to be compared in 
beauty to my Pamela, nor hath she half her merit. And besides, sir, 
as you civilly throw my marriage with your sister in my teeth, I must 
teach you the wide difference between us : my fortune enabled me to 



HENRY FIELDING. 281 

please myself, and it would have tfeen as overgrown a folly in me to 
have omitted it as in you to do it.' 

" ' My fortune enables me to please myself likewise,' said Joseph, 
"for all my pleasure is centred in Fanny; and while I have health I 
shall be able to support her with my labor in that station to which 
she was born, and with which she is content.' 

11 ' Brother,' said Pamela, ' Mr. Booby advises you as a friend ; and 
no doubt my papa and mamma will be of his opinion, and will have 
great reason to be angry with you for destroying what his goodness 
bath done, and throwing down our family again after he hath raised 
it. It would become you better, brother, to pray for the assistance of 
grace against such a passion, than to indulge it," 

" ' Sure, sister, you are not in earnest ; I am sure she is your equal, 
at least/ 

" ' She was my equal,' answered Pamela ; ' but I am no longer 
Pamela Andrews ; I am now this gentleman's lady, and, as such, am 
above her. I hope I shall never behave with an unbecoming pride ; 
but at the same time I shall always endeavor to know myself, and ques- 
tion not the assistance of grace to that purpose.' " 

Fielding next tried his hand at burlesque, and in 1743 
produced his biography of Jonathan Wild, in which he 
traces, in a strain of ironical eulogy, the career of a notorious 
criminal who perished on the gallows. There is much wit 
in the book; but both the subject and style are unpleasing. 
His greatest work, Tom Jones, or the History of a Foundling, 
appeared in 1749. This was the first English comic novel 
of character and real life, and in its way it has never been 
excelled. The characters are all most life-like; the situa- 
tions happy, ingenious, and yet natural; and the whole con- 
duct of the story easy, entertaining, and probable. A great 
deal of the picaresco element enters into this, as into the 
rest of Fielding's stories, and a large part of the scenes con- 
sist of fights, drubbings, quarrels, scoldings, mistakes at 
inns, etc., which form the staple of the picaresco novel. The 
book, however excellent in a literary point of view, is 
gravely defective in morals, not only by containing scenes 
and passages of gross indecency, but in its general conduct, 



282 THE XOYELISTS. 

which represents the hero as guilty of disgusting and degra- 
ding immorality, while cherishing all the time an affection 
for a pure and noble girl, with whose hand he is finally 
rewarded. 

In 1751 Fielding published his Amelia, a novel generally 
believed to have been composed as a tribute to the excellen- 
cies of his second wife, to whom he certainly owed some 
reparation for the distress his extravagance and dissolute- 
ness had given her. He died in Lisbon in 1754. 

It is difficult, in a work like this, from which all objec- 
tionable matter must be excluded, to give a good and char- 
acteristic specimen of Fielding's talents, as unfortunately 
those scenes in which he displays the greatest wit and genius 
are precisely those which are most disfigured by indelicacy 
or profanity. We have selected a scene between Squire 
Western, the father of the heroine, and his sister : 

" The squire and the parson (for the landlord was now otherwise 
engaged) were smoking their pipes together, when the arrival of the 
lady was first signified. The squire no sooner heard her name, than 
he immediately ran down to usher her up-stairs ; for he was a great 
observer of such ceremonials, especially to his sister, of whom he 
stood more in awe than of any other human creature ; though he 
never would own to this, nor did he perhaps know it himself. 

" Mrs. Western, on her arrival in the drawing-room, having flung 
herself into a chair, began thus to harangue : ' Well, surely, no one 
ever had such an intolerable journey. I think the roads, since so 
many turnpike acts, are grown worse than ever. La, brother ! how 
could you get into this odious place ? Xo person of condition, I dare 
swear, ever set foot here before.' — ■ I don't know,' cries the squire, k I 
think they do well enough ; it was landlord recommended them. I 
thought, as he knew most of the quality, he could but show me where 
to get among urn.' — ' Well, and where's my niece ? ' says the lady ; k Ay , 
ay,' cries the squire, ■ your niece is safe enough; she is up-stairs in 
chamber.' ' How ! ' answered the lady, ' is my niece in this house, and 
doth she not know of my being here ? '— ' No, nobody can well get to 
her/ says the squire ; ' for she is under lock and key. I have her safe ; 
I vetched her from my lady cousin the first night I came to town, and 
I have taken care o' her ever since : she is as secure as a fox in a bag, 



HEN BY FIELDING. 283 

I promise you.' — { Good Heaven ! f returned Mrs. Western, * what do 
I hear ! I thought what a fine piece of work would be the conse- 
quence of my consent to your coming to town yourself; nay, it was 
indeed your ow T n headstrong will, nor can I charge myself with having 
ever consented to it. Did not you promise me, brother, that you would 
take none of these headstrong measures ? Was it not by these head- 
strong measures that you forced my niece to run away from you in 
the countiy ? Have you a mind to oblige her to take another such 

step?' ' and the !' cries the squire, dashing his pipe on the 

ground, 4 did ever mortal hear the like ? when I expected you would 
have commended me for all I have done, to be fallen upon in this man- 
ner ! ' — ' How ! brother/ said the lady, ' have I ever given you the least 
reason to imagine I should commend you for locking up your daughter ? 
Have I not often told you, that women in a free countiy are not to be 
treated with such arbitrary power? We are as free as the men, and 
I heartily wish I could not say w T e deserve that freedom better. If 
you expect I should stay a moment longer in this wretched house, or 
that I should ever own you again as my relation, or that I should ever 
trouble myself again with the affairs of your family, I insist upon it, 
that my niece be set at liberty this instant ' — this she spoke with so 
commanding an air, standing with her back to the fire, with one hand 
behind her, and a pinch of snuff in the other, that I question w T hether 
Thalestris, at the head of her Amazons, ever made a more tremendous 
figure. It is no wonder, therefore, that the poor squire was not proof 
against the awe which she inspired. 4 There,' he cried, throwing 
down the key, ' there it is ; do whatever you please. I intended only 
to have kept her up till Blifil came to town, which can't be long ; and 
now if any harm happens in the mean time, remember who is to be 
blamed for it.' 

" ' I will answer for it with my life,' cried Mrs. Western ; ' but I shall 
not intermeddle at all, unless upon one condition, and that is, that you 
will commit the whole entirely to my care, without taking any one 
measure yourself, unless I shall eventually appoint you to the act. If 
you ratify these preliminaries, brother, I yet will endeavor to preserve 
the honor of the family ; if not, I shall continue in a neutral state.' 

" ' I pray you, good sir,' said the parson, ' permit yourself this once 
to be admonished by her ladyship ; peradventure, by communing with 
young Madam Sophia, she will effect more than you have been able to 
perpetrate by more rigorous measures.' 

11 * What, dost thee open upon me ? ' cries the squire. * If thee dost 
begin to babble, I shall whip thee in presently.* 

" ' Fie, brother/ answered the lady, ' is this language to a clergy- 
man ? Mr. Supple is a man of sense, and gives you the best advice ; 



284 THE XO YE LISTS. 

and the whole world, I believe, will concur in his opinion ; but I must 
tell you I expect an immediate answer' to my categorical proposals. 
Either cede your daughter to my disposal, or take her wholly to your 
own surprising discretion ; and then I here, before Mr. Supple, evacu- 
ate the garrison and renounce you and your family forever.' 

" ' I pray you, let me be a mediator/ cries the parson; ' let me sup- 
plicate you.' 

" ■ Why, there lies the key on the table,' cries the squire. ' She may 
take un up, if she pleases ; who hinders her? ' 

"'No, brother,' answered the lady, 'I insist on the formality of its 
being delivered me, with a full ratification of all the concessions stip- 
ulated.' 

11 ' Why, then, I will deliver it to you — there 'tis,' cries the squire. 
*I am sure, sister, you can't accuse me of ever denying to trust my 
daughter to you. She hath a lived wi' you a whole year and more to 
a time, without my ever seeing her.' 

11 ' And it would have been happy for her,' answered the lady, ' if 
she had always lived with me. Nothing of this kind would have hap- 
pened under my eye.' 

" ■ Ay, certainly,' cries he, ' I only am to blame.' 

" ' Why, you are to blame, brother,' answered she. ' I have been 
often obliged to tell you so, and shall always be obliged to tell you so. 
However, I hope you will now amend, and gather so much experience 
from past errors as not to defeat my wisest machinations by your blun- 
ders. Indeed; brother, you are not qualified for these negotiations. 
All your whole scheme of politics is wrong. I once more, therefore, 
insist that you do not intermeddle. Remember only what is passed.' 

" ' and , sister ! ' cries the squire, ■ what would you have 

me say ? You are enough to provoke the devil.' 

" ' There now,' said she, 'just according to the old custom. I see, 
brother, there is no talking to you. I will appeal to Mr. Supple, who 
is a man of sense, if I said anything which could put any human 
creature into a passion j but you are so wrong-headed every way/ 

" ' Let me beg you, madam,' said the parson, 'not to irritate his 
worship/ 

" ' Irritate him ! ' said the lady ; ' sure, you are as great a fool as 
himself. Well, brother, since you have promised not to interfere, I 
will once more undertake the management of my niece. Lord have 
mercy upon all affairs which are under the directions of men ! The 
head of one woman is worth a thousand of yours.' And now, having 
summoned a servant to show her to Sophia, she departed, bearing the 
key with her. 

" The squire, having ordered in another bottle, which was his usual 



TOBIAS SMOLLETT. 285 

method when anything either pleased or vexed hini, did, by drinking 
plentifully of this medicinal julap, so totally wash away his choler 
that his temper was become perfectly placid and serene when Mrs. 
Western returned with Sophia into the room. The young lady had 
on her hat and capuchin ; and the aunt acquainted Mr. Western ' that 
she intended to take her niece with her to her own lodgings ; for 
indeed, brother,' says she, ( these rooms are not fit to receive a Chris- 
tian soul in.' 

" * Very well, madam/ quoth Western, ' whatever you please. The 
girl can never be in better hands than yours ; and the parson here can 
do me the justice to say, that I have said fifty times behind your back 
that you was one of the most sensible women in the world/ 

u * To this,' cries the parson, ' I am ready to bear testimony.' 

11 ■ Nay, brother,' says Mrs. Western, * I have always, I'm sure, given 
you as favorable a character. You must own you have a little too 
much hastiness in your temper ; but when you will allow yourself 
time to reflect, I never knew a man more reasonable.' 

" ' Why then, sister, if you think so,' said the squire, ' here's your 
good health with all my heart. I am a little passionate sometimes, 
but I scorn to bear any malice. Sophy, do you be a good girl, and do 
everything your aunt orders you.' " 

If Fielding introduced the picaresco element liberally into 
his novels, another contemporary novelist — Tobias Smollett, 
a Scotchman, born in 1720 — made it his proper theme. 
His first story, Roderick Random, was published in 1748, 
Peregrine Pickle in 1751, Ferdinand Count Fathom in 1754, 
Sir Launcelot Greaves in 1762, and Humphrey Clinker in 
1771. 

In these stories there is a perpetual flow of incidents, and 
much skill in drawing humorous character ; but the inci- 
dents are coarse, often indecent, and not seldom revolting, 
and the characters, in great part, either villains or absurd 
grotesques. Count Fathom is a detail of the ignoble adven- 
tures of a common swindler ; Peregrine Pickle, the biogra- 
phy of a licentious and ruffianly scapegrace. The humorous 
incidents are drunken bouts, cudgellings, coarse practieal 
jokes; and the serious, duels, intrigues, and even more 
shameful exploits. The most patient reader soon wearies of 



286 THE NOVELISTS. 

the coarse behavior, the disgusting language, and the debased 
morality of the society into which he is brought, and is glad 
to get away from it. The only qualities which entitle these 
works to a place among standard authors, are their genuine 
humor, and their racy idiomatic language. Smollett died in 
1771. 



OHAPTEE XXVIL 

The Novelists, continued. — Sterne — Goldsmith. 

The virtues, vices, and follies of mankind were the themes 
of preceding novelists and essayists ; but there remained an 
entirely unexplored and rich field, which a great master of 
observation, wit, and humor, at once made his own, and 
opened a new domain to literature. 

Laurence Sterne, the descendant of an old English 
family, was born at Clonmel, in Ireland, in the year 1713. 
His fother was a lieutenant in the army, whose regiment 
was disbanded on the day of our author's birth, thus causing 
a removal of the family to England. During the years of 
Laurence's boyhood, his father, who seems to have been 
most of the time in necessitous circumstances, was much 
ordered about (England being then at war with Spain), and 
his family suffered many hardships in consequence. During 
the siege of Gibraltar, Lieutenant Sterne was dangerously 
wounded in an absurd duel about a goose, and never entirely 
recovered from the effects of the wound. He died in 1731, 
and is supposed to have furnished his son with the model for 
his character of Uncle Toby. Sterne says of his father: 
" He was in his temper somewhat rapid and hasty, but of a 
kindly, sweet disposition, void of all design ; and so innocent 
in his own intentions that he suspected no one ; so that you 
might have cheated him ten times in a day if nine had not 
been sufficient for your purpose." 

In the year 1733 Sterne entered the University of Cam- 



288 THE NOVELISTS. 

bridge, where he was graduated in 1736, and afterwards took 

holy orders. In 1741 he married. In the year 1759 appeared 
the first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, the publication 
of which, in volumes, went on until 1767. Early in the 
following year he published the Sentimental Journey. He 
died in March of the same year. 1768. 

Sterne, as well as Goldsmith, anticipates in his writings 
the .spirit of the next century : Goldsmith on the side of 
naturalism, and Sterne on that of individualism. The 
theme of his great work are the eccentricities, whims, harm- 
less oddities, or, as he calls them, "hobbies," of mankind; 
and this fruitful topic he has handled with boundless wit, 
humor, and originality. The whole work is a caprice which 
perpetually startles the reader by its unexpected turns. 
Xeither the author nor his personages can ever be earnest 
upon any subject for two minutes at a time ; they inces- 
santly spring off in the most unexpected, yet delightful way, 
into digressions, allusions, anecdotes, whimsical fancies of 
all sorts, all filled with shrewd observations upon men and 
manners, and showing the keenest perception of the ludi- 
crous in trivial matters. This wonderful appreciation of the 
humors of what we may call the infinitely little — the inflec- 
tion of a voice, the raising an evebrow, the knocking 
ashes out of a pipe, the opening or shutting a door — was like 
the exhibition of a new sense; and we can see the traces of 
Sterne's influence in all humorous writers since his time, but 
especially in the two most popular novelists of our own day. 

Pedantry and formality were Sterne's especial aversion. 
and his works abound in sarcasms on the pedants and critics 
of his day. Xo more striking and perfect contrast can be 
found in literature than that between Sterne and his con- 
temporary, Johnson, the one the very incarnation of for- 
mality, and the other the wildest spirit of caprice : the one 
never condescending to a jest, the other never able to be 



LAURENCE STERNE. 289 

thoroughly in earnest ; the one disposed to look at all things 
in orders and classes, the other to individualise everything 
he sees. 

This is what we meant when we said Sterne anticipated 
the nineteenth century, in which, as we shall see, the spirit 
of individualism was to become one of the chief character- 
istics of the age. While the tendency of the classic period 
was to ordinate and classify, by seizing resemblance, the aim 
of Sterne is to distinguish and individualise by seizing points 
of difference. Had Kichardson, for instance, attempted the 
character of Uncle Toby, he would have endeavored to make 
him the type of a class of good-natured, brave, old half-pay 
officers. - Sterne's aim is to show how, while possessing these 
qualities, he differed from all other half-pay officers and all 
other men ; and this he does by a microscopic study of pecu- 
liarities. As we should expect from such a mode of treat- 
ment, aided by so wonderful a keenness of perception, no 
characters more distinct, more perfectly life-like, have ever 
been drawn than those in Tristram Shandy ; to read the 
book is to make their personal acquaintance, and to become 
familiar with their very tricks of speech, motion, or gait. 

Sterne's tender and pathetic passages have been much 
admired, and certainly they are masterpieces of delicate 
observation and handling. He knew the pathos that could 
be conveyed by a gesture, a look, an interrupted sentence, or 
even in the actions of a dumb animal. But there is a hollow 
ring about it all : we feel that he is not himself moved by the 
pictures he conjures up, but rather enjoys the consummate 
skill with which he can touch the chords of pity in his 
readers. This nice and artistic elaboration of all the minu- 
tiae of pathos, these carefully-studied assaults, and adroit 
surprises of the reader's sensibilities, are reproduced in some 
of the most popular writers of our day; while the real 
emotion which Sterne but counterfeits — the genuine pity 

13 



290 THE NOVELISTS. 

for the sufferings of the lowest, and unfeigned sympathy with 
even idiots, beggars, or brutes — finds noble expression in 
Wordsworth. 

Sterne's nature was effeminate, nervous, and morbid, and in 
nothing does this appear more plainly than in the indecency 
with which his writings are tainted throughout. In this 
respect he differs from all other writers who are stained with 
the same fault. The indecency of Rabelais is merely the 
outburst of riotous spirits ; that of the Restoration is frank 
sensuality ; that of Fielding and Smollett, grossness of per- 
ception, and habitual coarseness of thought and speech. 
The indecency of Sterne indicates mental and moral disease, 
a voluntary perversity, a pleasure in playing with naughty 
things because they are naughty. In this respect he has 
happily fouud no imitators, so that his influence upon litera- 
ture has been more for good than for evil ; but for this cause 
his own works are unfit to be placed in the hands of the 
young. 

We have preferred to select our specimen of Sterne neither 
from his wildest caprices nor from his sentimentalities : 

"My young master in London is dead! said Obadiah. A green 
satin night-gown of my mother's, which had been twice scoured, was 
the first idea wmich Obadiah's exclamation brought into Susannah's 
head. Well might Locke write a chapter upon the imperfections of 
words. Then, quoth Susannah, we must all go into mourning. — But 
note a second time : the word mourning, notwithstanding Susannah 
made use of it herself, failed also of doing its office: it excited not one 
single idea tinged either with gray or black, — all was green. The 
green satin night-gown hung there still. 

" Oh ! 'twill be the death of my poor mistress ! cried Susannah. — 
My mother's whole wardrobe followed.-^ What a procession ! her red 
damask— her orange-tawny — her white and yellow lute-strings — her 
brown taffeta — her bone-laced caps, her bed-gowns, and comfortable 
under-petticoats — not a rag was left behind. No — she will never look 
up again! said Susannah. 

" We had a fat foolish scullion — my father, I think, kept her for her 
simplicity— she had been all autumn struggling with a dropsy. — He is 



LAURENCE STERNE. 291 

dead ! said Obadiah ; — he is certainly dead. So am not I, said the 
foolish scullion. 

"Here is sad news, Trim! cried Susannah, wiping her eyes as 
Trim stepped into the kitchen ; master Bobby is dead and buried — the 
funeral was an interpolation of Susannah's — we shall have all to go 
into mourning, said Susannah. 

" I hope not, said Trim. You hope not 1 cried Susannah earnestly. 
— The mourning ran not in Trim's head, whatever it did in Susan- 
nah's — I hope, said Trim, explaining himself, I hope in heaven the 
news is not true. — I heard the letter read with my own ears, answered 
Obadiah ; and we shall have a terrible piece of work of it in stubbing 
the ox-moor. — Oh ! he's dead, said Susannah. 

" I lament for him from my heart and my soul ! said Trim, fetching 
a sigh. — Poor creature ! poor boy ! poor gentleman ! 

" He was alive last Whitsuntide ! said the coachman. Whitsuntide ! 
— alas ! cried Trim, extending his right arm and falling instantly into 
the same attitude in which he read the sermon — what is Whitsuntide, 
Jonathan, or Shrovetide, or any tide or time past to this ? Are we not 
here now, continued the Corporal (striking the end of his stick perpen- 
dicularly on the ground, so as to give an idea of health and stability) — 
and are we not (dropping his hat on the ground) gone ! in a moment ! — 
'Twas infinitely striking : Susannah burst into a flood of tears. We 
are not stocks and stones. Jonathan, Obadiah, the cook-maid, all 
melted. The foolish fat scullion herself, who was scouring a fish-kettle 
upon her knees, was roused with it. The whole kitchen crowded 
about the Corporal. 

" Are we not here now, and gone in a moment ? — There was nothing 
in the sentence : 'twas one of your self-evident truths we have the 
advantage of hearing every day ; and if Trim had not trusted more to 
his hat than his head, he had made nothing at all of it. 

"Are we not here now, continued the Corporal, and are we not 
— dropping his hat plump upon the ground — and pausing before he 
pronounced the word — " gone ! in a moment." The descent of the 
hat was as if a heavy lump of clay had been kneaded into the crown 
of it. Nothing could have expressed the sentiment of mortality, of 
which it was the type and forerunner, like it : his hand seemed to 
vanish from under it — it fell dead — the Corporal's eye fixed upon it as 
upon a corpse — and Susannah burst into a flood of tears. 

" Now ten thousand, and ten thousand times ten thousand (for 
matter and motion are infinite) are the ways by which a hat may be 
dropped upon the ground without any effect. Had he flung it, or 
thrown it, or cast it, or skimmed it, or let it slip or fall in any possible 
direction under heaven, or in the best direction that could be given to 



202 THE NOVELISTS 

it; had he dropped it like a goose, like a puppy, like an ass; or in 
doing it, or even after he had cfone it, had he looked like a fool, like a 
ninny, like a nincompoop, it had failed, and the effect upon the heart 
had been lost. 

11 Ye who govern this mighty world and its mighty concerns with 
the engines of eloquence; w*ho heat it, and cool it, and melt it, and 
mollify it, and then harden it again to your purpose ; ye who wind and 
tarn the passions with this great windlass, and having done it, lead 
the owners of them whither ye think meet; ye, lastly, who drife — and 
why not ? — ye, also, who are driven, like turkeys to market, with a 
stick and a red clout — meditate, meditate. I beseech you, upon Trim's 
hat. 

" Trim took his hat off the ground, put it upon his head, and then 
went on with his oration upon death, in manner and form following : 

" To us, Jonathan, who know not what want or care is, who live 
here in the sendee of two of the best of masters — (bating, in my own 
case, his majesty, King William the Third, whom I had the honor to 
serve both in Ireland and Flanders) — I own it, that from Whitsuntide to 
within three weeks of Christmas, 'tis not long — 'tis like nothing; but 
to those, Jonathan, who know what death is, and what havoc and 
destruction he can make before a man can well wheel about, 'tis like a 
whole age. Jonathan ! 'twould make a good-natured man's heart 
bleed to consider, continued the Corporal, standing perpendicularly, 
how low many a brave and upright fellow has been laid since that 
time ! And trust me, Susy, added the Corporal, turning to Susannah, 
whose eyes were swimming in water, before that time comes round 
again, many a bright eye will be dim. Susannah placed it to the right 
side of the page; she wept, but she curtsied too. Are we not, con- 
tinued Trim, looking still at Susannah, are we not like a flower of 
the field? A tear of pride stole in betwixt every two tears of hu- 
miliation, else no tongue could have described Susannah's affliction. 
Is not all flesh grass? 'Tis clay, 'tis dirt. They all looked directly 
at the scullion— the scullion had been just scouring a fish-kettle — it 
was not fair. What is the finest face that ever man looked at? I 
could hear Trim talk so forever, cried Susannah. What is it — (Su- 
sannah laid her hand upon Trim's shoulder) but corruption ! Susan- 
nah took it off." 

We close the century with the name of a man who belonged 
to it but in part, and was but partially understood and much 
undervalued by his contemporaries, yet who was one of its 
brightest ornaments, as we now can see, and who is prized 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 293 

and esteemed the more by us, that his blameless life was 
darkened by much undeserved neglect. 

Oliver Goldsmith was born in an obscure village in Ire- 
land in 1728. His father was a clergyman with a small 
income, who, however, found means to send Oliver, who ex- 
hibited much precocity of talent, to good teachers, and finally 
procured his admittance as a sizar (or poor-scholar) at 
Trinity College, Dublin. Little is recorded of his college 
life, except his indifference to the studies prescribed him, 
and his unlucky proclivity to get into scrapes. A year and 
a half after he had entered college his father died ; and young 
Goldsmith was reduced to such extreme poverty that he wrote 
and sold street-ballads to keep himself from starving. How- 
ever, he barely succeeded in obtaining his degree, and left the 
college. 

He now turned his thoughts successively to divinity, law, 
and medicine, and finally resolving to adopt the latter, went 
to Edinburgh to prosecute his studies. From Edinburgh he 
went to Leyden, and after some stay in the learned city, set 
off, without money, to make the tour of Europe. Of this 
vagabond expedition, in which he often paid for his enter- 
tainment at a village-inn or farm-house by playing the flute 
for the villagers to dance, he has left us charming reminis- 
cences in his Traveller. 

Eeturning to London penniless, he cast about for means 
of subsistence, and tried literature, writing reviews, essays, 
and other slight pieces for magazines, and compiling works 
for the booksellers, receiving but scanty pay, and forced by 
necessity to submit to many humiliations. Yet in this ill- 
paid "hack-writing/' as it was called, the genius and talents 
of the man were seen, and began to attract attention. The 
public began to discover that a writer of new powers and 
graces was making his way to notice : a man who could teach 
a valuable lesson to the accredited masters of literature ; who 



294 THE NOVELISTS. 

knew, what Johnson never knew, that it was possible to be 
wise without being pedantic ; what Fielding never knew, how 
to be entertaining without ceasing to be graceful; what 
Smollett could not even conceive, that sportiveness was quite 
possible without ribaldry ; and what the all-admired Sterne 
ought to have known, that the liveliest wit was quite consist- 
ent with perfect cleanness of thought and speech. These 
were great discoveries for the time. 

Goldsmith's employment now began to be more remunera- 
tive, but not before he had sounded the very depths of pov- 
erty. But Johnson, the great literary potentate, had seen 
his writings, and made his acquaintance, and thence followed 
a friendship which introduced Goldsmith to the leading 
writers and lovers of letters of his time. Johnson's friend- 
ships, it is true, had a peculiar expression, and he rarely 
treated Goldsmith with courtesy, and often with a supercili- 
ousness not much short of insult; yet we cannot doubt that 
he had a genuine regard, a little dashed with contempt, for 
a man, all whose little foibles he noticed, and whom he con- 
sidered very -much his inferior. It was by Johnson's assist- 
ance that he sold (for sixty pounds) his Vicar of Wakefield, 
thus relieving himself from an arrest for debt. This was in 
1764, and almost immediately after was published his charm- 
ing poem, The Traveller, which brought him much reputa- 
tion. The Vicar was not published until 1766. 

As in the Traveller Goldsmith has recounted incidents of 
his wanderings, so in the Vicar we find reminiscences of his 
trials and sufferings in the earlier part of his London life. 
But the worst of these were now over, and Goldsmith's place 
among men of letters assured. True, his want of self-asser- 
tion, or rather of personal dignity, and his many superficial 
weaknesses, which every man who knew him could play upon, 
caused his position to be far inferior to his merits, but still 
his merits were recognised. Even the Ministry offered a 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 295 

considerable sum to engage his services as a partisan writer, 
but, to his honor, he refused. 

In 17G8 his comedy The Good-natured If an, was brought 
out, and was successful. In 1770 appeared his exquisite poem, 
The Deserted Village in which, while preserving the carefully- 
modulated rhythm and balanced phrase of Pope, he treats his 
subject in a simple, natural, idyllic, and thoroughly modern 
manner. It was received with applause, both at home and 
abroad, and Goethe, who has left an exquisitely appreciative 
notice of the Vicar of Wakefield, records the delight with 
which he and his literary friends — the advanced guard of the 
new literary era — hailed the new poem, which he at once set 
about translating into German. 

In 1773 appeared his admirable comedy, She Stoops to 
Conquer, which met with extraordinary success, and still 
continues a favorite both on the stage and in the library. 
In the next year, 1774, he died. 

Goldsmith, in spirit, belongs altogether to the period which 
next follows. In all his writings, except where he forces the 
bent of his genius, he attempts to be true to nature as he 
finds it, not as he thinks it ought to be. His morality is 
everywhere pure and noble, without ostentation of fine senti- 
ments, and his language chaste, from natural pureness of 
thought, in an age when coarseness was almost universal. 
He discovered the secret of interesting us in the fortunes of 
the lowly, without straining for affected sentiments, or setting 
us laughing at caricatures. His Vicar of Wakefield, though 
loose in construction, and improbable and unartistic in the 
incidents, is exquisitely true to nature in the characters and 
language; and the good Doctor with his notable dame, the 
thoughtful Sophia, and the impulsive Olivia, the sapient 
Moses, and eveu little Dick and Bill, seem likely to live as 
long as our literature. The Vicar of Wakefield is the first 
English domestic novel, as the Deserted Village may be call 3d 



296 THE NOVELISTS. 

the first genuine English idyll: two forms of art which have 
risen to the first rank of importance in our own time. 

Goldsmith's style is the perfection of natural grace, arising 
from a happy combination of fine taste with warm feelings; 
and his works leave the kindly impression of a nature 
incapable of malignity, rancor, or sarcasm, grateful for kind- 
ness, quick to forgive injuries, gentle to others' follies, and 
only asking a gentle judgment of his own. "While there are 
writers of his time whose characters and talents may demand 
a higher degree of our admiration, there is no one who occu- 
pies such a place in our affections; and wherever there is a 
kindly, affectionate, charitable heart, lenient to petty faults, 
and loving genuine goodness, the gentle, amiable Goldsmith, 
like his own " spendthrift/' will 

" Claim kindred there, and have his claim allowed." 

The famous bargain which the good Vicar's son makes m 
selling the colt, is the subject of our selection : 

" When we were returned home, the night was dedicated to schemes 
of future conquest. Deborah exerted much sagacity in conjecturing 
which of the two girls was likely to have the best place, and most 
opportunities of seeing good company. The only obstacle to our pre- 
ferment was in obtaining the squire's recommendatiou ; but he had 
already shown us too many instances of his friendship to doubt of it 
now. Even in bed my wife kept up the usual theme : * Well, faith, my 
dear Charles, between ourselves, I think we have made an excellent 
day's work of it.' * Pretty well/ cried I, not knowing what to say. 
* What, only pretty well ? ' returned she. ' I think it is very well. 
Suppose the girls should come to make acquaintances of taste in town ! 
This I am assured of, that London is the only place in the world for 
all manner of husbands. Besides, my dear, stranger things happen 
every day ; and as ladies of quality are so taken with my daughters, 
what will not men of quality be ! Entre nous, I protest, I like my lady 
Blarney vastly — so very obliging. However, Miss Carolina Wilhel- 
mina Amelia Skeggs has my warm heart. But yet when they came to 
talk of places in town, you saw at once how I nailed them. Tell me, 
my dear, don't you think I did for my children there?' 'Aye,' returned 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 297 

I, not knowing well what to think of the matter, c heaven grant they 
may be both the better for it this day three months ! ' This was one 
of those observations I usually made to impress my wife with an 
opinion of my sagacity ; for if the girls succeeded, then it was a pious 
wish fulfilled ; but if anything unfortunate ensued, then it might be 
looked upon as a prophecy. All this conversation, however, was only 
preparatory to another scheme ; and indeed I dreaded as much. This 
w r as nothing else than, that as we were now to hold up our heads a 
little higher in the world, it would be proper to sell the colt, which 
was grown old, at a neighboring fair, and buy us a horse that would 
carry single or double upon an occasion, and make a pretty appearance 
at church or upon a visit. This I at first opposed stoutly ; but it was 
as stoutly defended. However, as I weakened, my antagonists gained 
strength, till at last it was resolved to part with him. 

u As the fair happened on the following day, I had intentions of 
going myself; but my wife persuaded me that I had got a cold, and 
nothing could prevail upon her to permit me from home. ' No, my 
dear/ said she ; ' our son Moses is a discreet boy, and can buy and sell 
to very good advantage : you know all our great bargains are of his 
purchasing. He always stands out and higgles, and actually tires them 
till he gets a bargain/ 

u As I had some opinion of my son's prudence, I was willing enough 
to intrust him with this commission ; and the next morning I perceived 
his sisters mighty busy in fitting out Moses for the fair : trimming his 
hair, brushing his buckles, and cocking his hat with pins. The busi- 
ness of the toilet being over, we bad at last the satisfaction of seeing 
him mounted upon the colt, with a deal box before him to bring home 
groceries in. He had on a coat made of that cloth they call c thunder- 
and-lightning,' which, though grown too short, was much too good to 
be thrown away. His waistcoat was of gosling green, and his sisters 
had tied his hair with a broad black ribbon. We all followed him 
several paces from the door, bawling after him, ' Good luck ! good luck ! ' 

till we could see him no longer 

"I changed the subject by seeming to wonder what could 

keep our son so long at the fair, as it was now almost nightfall. 
* Never mind our son/ cried my wife ; ■ depend upon it he knows what 
he is about, I'll warrant we'll never see him sell his hen of a rainy 
day. I have seen him buy such bargains as would amaze one. I'll 
tell you a good story about that, that will make you split your sides 
with laughing. But, as I live, yonder comes Moses without a horse, 
and the box at his back.' 

" As she spoke, Moses came slowly on foot and sweating under the 
deal box, which he had strapped round his shoulders like a peddler. 

13* 



298 THE NOVELISTS. 

1 Welcome, welcome, Moses ; well, my boy, what have you brought 
us from the fair?* 'I have brought you myself,' cried Moses, with a 
sly look, and resting the box on the dresser. ' Ah, Moses/ cried my 
wife, l that we know, but where is the horse? ' * I have sold him,' said 
Moses, * for three pounds, five shillings, and twopence.' ' Well done, 
my good boy!' returned she, 'I knew you would touch them off. 
Between ourselves, three pounds, five shillings, and twopence is no bad 
day's work. Come, let me have it, then.' ' I have brought back no 
money,' cried Moses again. * I have laid it all out in a bargain, and 
here it is' — pulling a bundle from his breast — * here they are : a gross 
of green spectacles with silver rims and shagreen cases.' 

" ' A gross of green spectacles ! ' repeated my wife in a faint voice. 
'And you have parted with the colt, and brought us back nothing but 
a gross of green, paltry spectacles ! ' ' Dear mother/ cried the boy, 
4 why won't you listen to reason ? I had them a dead bargain, or I 
should not have bought them. The silver rims alone will sell for 
double the money.' 'A fig for the silver rims!' cried my wife in a 
passion. * I dare swear they won't sell for above half the money at the 
rate of broken silver, five shillings an ounce.' i You need be under 
no uneasiness/ said I, ' about selling the rims, for they are not worth 
sixpence ; for I perceive they are only copper, varnished over/ * What ! ' 
cried my wife, ' not silver ? the rims not silver ? ' * No/ cried I, ' no 
more silver than your saucepan.' ' And so/ returned she, * we have 
parted with the colt, and have only got a gross of green spectacles, 
with copper rims and shagreen cases ! A murrain take such trumpery ! 
The blockhead "has been imposed upon, and should have known his 
company better!' ' There, my dear/ cried I, 'you are wrong; he 
should not have known them at all.' ' Marry, hang the idiot/ returned 
she, 'to bring me such stuff; if I had them I would throw them in 
the fire/ ' There again you are wrong, my dear/ cried I, ' for though 
they be copper, we will keep them by us, as copper spectacles, you 
know, are better than nothing/ " 

Though Goldsmith is more distinctly original in his prose 
than in his poetry, yet the latter is so charming, both in 
thought and expression, that we cannot forbear extracting a 
deservedly-admired passage from The Deserted Village : 

Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, 
And still where many a garden-flower grows wild, 
There, v/here a few torn shrubs the place disclose, 
The yillage preacher's modest mansion rose. 



OLIVER GOLDSMITH. 299 

A man he was to all the country dear, 

And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 

Remote from towns, he ran his godly race, 

Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place. 

Unpractised he to fawn, or seek for power, 

By doctrine fashioned to the varying hour : 

Far other aims his heart had learned to prize ; 

More skilled to raise the wretched than to rise. 

His house was known to all the vagrant train ; 

He chid their wanderings, but relieved their pain : 

The long-remembered beggar was his guest, 

"Whose beard, descending, swept his aged breast ; 

The ruined spendthrift, now no longer proud, 

Claimed kindred there, and had his claim allowed ; 

The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay, 

Sat by the fire, and talked the night away ; 

Wept o'er his wounds, or tales of sorrow done, 

Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. 

Pleased with his guest, the good man learned to glow, 

And quite forgot their vices in their woe ; 

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 

His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 
And e'en his failings leaned to virtue's side ; 
But, in his duty, prompt at every call, 
He watched and wept, he prayed and felt for all : 
And, as a bird each fond endearment tries 
To tempt its new-fledged offspring to the skies, 
He tried each art, reproved each dull delay, 
Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way. 
Beside the bed where parting life was laid, 
And sorrow, guilt, and pain by turns dismayed, 
The reverend champion stood ; at his control 
Despair and anguish fled the struggling soul ; 
Comfort came down the trembling wretch to raise, 
And his last faltering accents whispered praise. 

At church, with meek and unaffected grace, 
His looks adonred the venerable place ; 
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
And fools who came to scoff remained to pray. 
The service past, around the pious man, 
With steady zeal, each honest rustic jan ; 



300 THE NOVELISTS. 

Even children followed, with endearing wile, 

And plucked his gown, to share the good man's smile. 

His ready smile a parent's warmth expressed, 

Their welfare pleased him, and their cares distressed ; 

To them his heart, his love, his griefs were given, 

But all his serious thoughts had rest in heaven : 

As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form, 

Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, 

Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 

Eternal sunshine settles on its head. 



OTHER WRITERS OF THIS PERIOD. 

BOT.S. DIED. 

Thomas Reid Philosophy 1710. . . .1796 

Dr. Joseph Priestley .Theology, Science 1733. . . .1804 

John Home Tooke Philology 1736 1812 

James Boswell Biography 1740. . . .1795 

Dr. William Paley Theology 1744 1805 

William Mi t ford History 1744. . . .1837 

Henry Mackenzie Novels 1745. . . .1831 

Hannah More Novels, etc 1 745 1833 

Sir William Jones Oriental Literature 1746 1794 

Jeremy Bentham Political Economy 1748. . . .1832 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan Dramas, Orations 1751. . . .181(3 

William Poscoe ; History, etc 1753. . . .1831 

William Godwin Political Essays, etc 1756 1836 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

The Nineteenth Century. The Poets — Wordsworth — Coleridge— 

Southey. 

The literature of any people at any period is the expression 
of its thoughts and feelings, its fears, hopes, and desires, at 
that period. Consequently whatever affects these — whatever 
events, external or internal, open new fields of thought, 
inspire it with new hopes or new energies, or depress it with 
gloom and apprehensions — will find expression throughout 
its literature. We do not mean by this remark the obvious 
truism that in a time of political or religious agitation, 
political or religious writings will abound ; but that there is 
so close a connection between all branches of literature, and 
such an interdependence of human thought, that any impulse 
of the kind is felt and leaves its traces everywhere. 

We have already noted how the principal flowering periods 
of English literature were intimately connected with great 
historical events. The period of Chaucer was coincident 
with the earlier and triumphant part of the Hundred Years' 
War, with the Wycliffe religious movement, and with the 
foundation of Parliamentary liberty ; that which next fol- 
lowed sprang from the Eenaissance and the Eeformation, to 
which England's position during the religious wars, her great 
peril and wonderful deliverance, added a fervid sentiment 
of patriotism. The establishment of the Commonwealth was 
marked by a total disappearance of art from letters, which 
well-nigh extinguished literature itself. The license of the 



302 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

Restoration, and the discreditable relations with France, are 
faithfully indicated in a licentious and thoroughly Gallicised 
literature. So the accession of William of Orange and of the 
house of Brunswick, in summoning whom to the throne the 
English people suppressed the sentiment of patriotism at the 
dictates of prudence, and accepted sovereigns whose manners, 
blood, and speech were alien and offensive to their insular 
pride, for the sake of peace abroad, and personal security at 
home — these events and this spirit are exactly followed in the 
Classical period, which aims chiefly at a safe correctness, 
studies models, and ventures no innovation for which sound 
authority cannot be pleaded.* 

With the close of the eighteenth century came into action 
that great series of events, only equalled in importance by 
those which closed the fifteenth, which have given to litera- 
ture the new spirit, new forms, and new powers which still 
characterise it. These events were : 

1. The French Revolution, with its immediate results. 

2. The introduction of German literature and philosophy 
into England* 

3. The increased importance assumed by Science. 

Of the political features of that gigantic popular move- 
ment, w r hich, from the events with which it opened, has been 
called the French Revolution, this is not the place to speak. 
We shall only treat of its influence upon the thought and 
action of the age, so far as they affect English literature. 

While other struggles for freedom have been the efforts of 
one or another class to wrest a privilege or regain a right 
from those whom they regarded as their oppressors, this was 
founded upon a newly-disseminated belief in the rights of 
men as men, in the doctrine that the people must win or 

* We might almost condense these periods into symbols, and assign 
to i»he first period the symbol Curiosity ; to the second, Life ; to the 
third, Justice; to the fourth, Amusement ; and to the fifth, Correctness. 



THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 303 

frame for themselves the reforms which their rulers, even 
when desirous, had not beeii able to introduce, and in the 
other doctrine, that government exists for the benefit of the 
whole people, and not for that of any class. Unfortunately, 
in France the application of these doctrines, from circum- 
stances which we need not enter into, took a form as prescrip- 
tive as those which they denounced, and was accompanied 
with scenes of frightful violence and cruelty, which produced 
over a great part of Europe a strong reaction against the 
doctrines themselves. But they took root notwithstanding, 
as well in minds which reprobated the excesses of the French 
Revolution, as in those which looked eagerly to it as the 
dawning of a millennium of liberty, and they are now almost 
admitted as axioms. 

The principles of political equality and of the rights of 
man, as distinguished from those of classes, tended to attach 
importance to each individual, irrespective of rank or station ; 
while the predominance which these views assigned to the 
masses of the people, gave to the poor, the humble, and the 
illiterate, a consequence and an interest which they had never 
had before. Hence the individualism which is conspicuous 
in the writings of this period; by which we mean an interest 
exhibited in personal character, irrespective of position, and 
as freely manifested toward a peasant, or a beggar, as to a 
prince or a statesman. 

Ardent and hopeful minds, who saw the principles which 
underlay the excesses of the time, were filled with anticipa- 
tions that a new and glorious era of universal freedom and 
equality was dawning : and much of the literature — especially 
the poetry — of the earlier part of this period is brightened 
with passionate hope. During the eventful reign of Napoleon, 
and at the time of its disastrous close, these fluctuations 
between hope and fear are strongly marked in literature. 

England, though keeping aloof from the military operations 



304 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

attending the Bevolution, saw with interest and sympathy 
the part taken by Germany, and especially her heroic con- 
duct in the War of Liberation. Later, her own participation 
in the Alliance drew her and Germany still closer together, 
removed from English minds many of their prejudices and 
misconceptions with regard to the latter country, and excited 
an interest in her literature. This, owing to the genius of 
Klopstock, Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Fichte, and the 
rest of that brilliant galaxy of poets and philosophers, had 
now developed in splendid perfection and great originality, 
so that those who undertook its study were charmed and 
captivated by it, and soon exhibited its influences in their 
own writings. 

Science, also, about this period, had made extraordinary 
progress. The discoveries of Lavoisier and Davy in chemis- 
try ; of Volta, Cavendish, Davy, and others in electricity ; 
of Werner and Hutton in geology; of Herschel and Young 
in astronomy and optics; Watt's application of steam; with 
many others, had excited great and general interest, and a 
conviction of the universality and stability of natural laws. 
It was justly thought that these w T ere but the forerunners of 
still more splendid discoveries; and the more sanguine 
anticipated the period as near at hand when, partly by im- 
proved processes and partly by the employment of steam, 
human drudgery would be done away with, and the race, 
freed from the oppression of toil, move swiftly on to a bril- 
liant future. 

Such were the chief general ideas which swayed men's 
minds at the commencement of this period. Their immedi- 
ate entrance into literature was marked by a sudden flush 
of life and passion ; a new interest in mankind and in men 
as men; a thro wing-off of the fetters of authority and 
example, each writer striving, more or less, to work out in 
his own way the fittest expression for his own thoughts; a 



MODEBN IDEAS. 305 

freedom of form which approximated to the liberty of the 
Elizabethan period; a growing conception of the majesty of 
the physical universe as an organic whole, ruled by tran- 
scendent, all-pervading law, and hence the quite new emo- 
tion of passionate love and admiration for Nature as some- 
thing in grandeur, beauty, and peace, distinct from and 
above the petty passions of humanity,* and in itself divine. 

While these ideas were distinctly and characteristically 
modern, the impulse to freedom and individualism turned 
men's minds with sympathy to those periods of history and 
literature wherein these qualities were most conspicuous; 
and hence a reaction to romantic mediaevalism in Scott and 
others, following in the steps of a similar reaction in Ger- 
many. On different minds these influences operated in 
different ways ; and hence great apparent diversity between 
contemporary poets. Byron sneers at Scott and Coleridge ; 
Southey is in a rage with Byron and Shelley, and so on, not 
perceiving that they are merely in different eddies of the 
same great current. 

The effect of these new ideas upon literature we shall 
endeavor very briefly to show by referring to the leading 
writers of the time, beginning with the poets.f 

* Thus Byron, in his description of Thrasymene and elsewhere, puts 
the human interest as a background to heighten the effect of the land- 
scape. 

f We give, here and elsewhere, the first place to the poets, because it 
is in the poetry of any age that the ideas of that age obtain their most 
general — or rather their universal — expression. To most of their contem- 
poraries, the historians, the men of science, the statesmen of any period, 
will appear the writers of chief importance, and the poetry but a graceful 
ornament and efflorescence of the time ; but, after the lapse of a century 
or two, it will be found that, with a sure instinct, the popular interest 
has fixed itself upon the poets, as best representing, not the events, but 
the spirit, of the time, its widest, deepest, most universal thought and 
feeling. 

What general interest would now be felt in a historical account of 
the siege of an ancient Phrygian town by a parcel of petty Achaian 



306 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

William Wordsworth was born in Cumberland, in the 
year IT TO. He early displayed poetic and literary tastes, and, 
after learning the rudiments of education at a good local 
school, was sent, in his eighteenth year, to the University of 
Cambridge, where he took the Bachelors degree in 1791. 
During the previous vacation he had made a pedestrian tour 
on the Continent, and, after his graduation, he again visited 
France, then in revolution, and remained there some time. 
The impression produced on his mind was great and endur- 
ing, though his earlier enthusiasm was much subdued, in 
the course of time, by his retired and contemplative life. He 
had been educated with a view to the church, but being 
unable to determine to undertake the clerical office, and 
having no definite object in life, he spent much time in 
travelling in England and abroad. In 1798 his Lyrical 
Ballads — a daring experiment in naturalism — were pub- 
lished, and were entirely neglected by the public. 

Wordsworth, however, conscious of his powers, and confi- 
dent that sooner or later he would find an audience, con- 
tinued to write, and his works began to excite attention. He 
was now living in the beautiful valley of Grasmere. in West- 
moreland. In 1813 he removed to Eydal Mount, and was 
placed in easier circumstances by receiving the office of Dis- 
tributor of Stamps for the County of Westmoreland. In 
1814 he published his largest work, The Excursion. Few 
incidents marked his retired and placid life ; but. year by 
year his genius met with ampler recognition. In 1843, on 
the death of Southey, he was appointed Poet-Laureate, an 
honor which was paid to his genius alone, as he had never 

chieftains? Who can estimate the importance to the world of the battle 
of Marathon? Yet compare the relative amount of popular interest felt 
in the tale of the poet and in the narrative of the historian. The mis- 
fortune of doers of heroic deeds, carere rate sacra, is, not that they lack a 
chronicler but a poet — one who could place them in relation with the 
universal heart of humanity. 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 307 

sought to win the favor of parties or the Court. In 1850, in 
the eighty-first year of his age, he died. 

In the poetry of Wordsworth we find the highest expres- 
sion of the contemplative life. Secluded from the bustle and 
turmoil of the world, he passed his life in deep communings 
with nature, in religious meditation, and in converse with his 
own heart. Scarce any poet has been so profoundly im- 
pressed by natural scenery, or has exercised so great an 
influence in awakening others to these impressions, which, 
with him, always have a deep religious significance. His 
imagination is active and noble, and often soars to the sub- 
limest heights ; and he can penetrate the mysteries of the 
human heart, in certain phases of feeling, with a subtlety 
and delicate sympathy which is only the gift of great poets. 

Iu his earlier writings, such as his Lyrical Ballads — a 
tautological name, for all ballads are lyrical in form — he 
shows, more clearly than in his later writings, the influence 
of the age which we have called individualism. The poor, 
the ignorant, the humble, their obscure thoughts, their suf- 
ferings, and their half-dumb emotions, had the deepest inter- 
est for him, and awakened in him the poetic impulse. 
Kbthing seemed to him too trivial to be the subject of a 
poem, provided it contained a touch of genuine emotion ; 
and thus we have a poem on a little girl getting her cloak 
torn in a carriage-wheel; one on a half-witted boy taking a 
ride by moonlight ; and another on his little son's telling him 
a lie. He forgets that there is such a thing as proportion in 
art; that incidents which may be effectively used as accesso- 
ries, may not be of sufficient importance for the main subject 
of a poem ; and that when the poet calls upon us for emo- 
tion, he is bound to show a worthy cause for it. 

In these poems, also, he maintained the doctrine that the 
language of ordinary life was the true language of poetry. 
In this he was partly right and partly wrong : he was right 



308 THE NINETEENTH CENTUM F. THE POETS. 

in repudiating the conventional forms, the balanced periods, 
the trite and frigid metaphors of the classical school ; but he 
erred as greatly in the other direction, so that many of his 
pieces are little more than metrical prose. The language of 
nature is poetry only when it springs from poetic feeling, and 
it is the poet's art to recognise and select this. Two beggars 
might bewail their lot, both with equal simplicity, sincerity, 
and pathos, and the language of the one might be poetical, 
and the other the baldest prose. In Wordsworth's mind, 
with its exquisite sensitiveness and high ideality, both would 
awaken poetic feeling, and he would consequently consider 
both poetical, confounding the effect with the cause. 

His later poems are not open to this objection, or at least 
not in the same degree. They are all pure and noble in 
tone, often richly and sublimely imaginative, and grandly 
harmonious in language. His great poem, The Excursion, 
is full of fine passages, some, for beauty, unsurpassed in the 
language ; but it lacks artistic form and proportion, and the 
events are too few and slight to justify the excessive trains 
of meditation and moralising. 

Of passion and energy Wordsworth scarcely shows a trace. 
His poems stimulate to feeling, to contemplation, to intro- 
spection, to sympathy, to devotion, but not to action. This 
restriction of his powers arose partly from temperament and 
partly from choice. Speaking of his own poems, he says : 
" To console the afflicted; to add sunshine to daylight, by 
making the happy happier ; to lead the young and the gra- 
cious of every age to see, to think, to feel, and to become 
more actively and securely virtuous, — this is their office." 
A very noble purpose in ethics, but a very limited view of 
art. 

But the grand principles which underlie all Wordsworth's 
poetry — a deep, enthusiastic, and devotional love of nature, 
and a profound sympathy with humanity, even in the hum- 



WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. 309 

blest — find a response in the depths of every noble heart ; and 
the time especially called for their emphatic statement 
Hence, his poetry, at first contemned, except by a few, gra- 
dually awakened responses, and then found continually 
higher appreciation and a wider circle of admirers ; and its 
influence on thought and literature has been great and fruit- 
ful in good, down to our own time. 

One of Wordsworth's noblest poems is his Ode on Intima- 
tions of Immortality, from which we make the following 
extracts : 

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, 

The earth and every common light, 
To me did seem 

Apparelled in celestial light, 
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 
It is not now as it has been of yore : 
Turn wheresoe'er I may, 
By night or day, 
The things which I have seen I now can see no more. 

The rainbow comes and goes, 

And lovely is the rose, — 

The moon doth with delight 
Look round her when the heavens are bare : 

Waters on a stany night — 

Are beautiful and fair; — 

The sunshine is a glorious birth ; 

But yet I know, where'er I go, 
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth. 



Whither is fled the visionary dream ? 
Where is it now, the glory and the dream \ 

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting : 
The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 

Hath elsewhere had its setting, 

And cometh from afar, 

Not in entire forgetfulness, 

And not in utter nakedness, 



310 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

But trailing clouds of glory, do we come, 

From God, who is our home : 
Heaven lies about us in our Infancy ! 
Shades of the prison-house begin to close 

Upon the growing Boy ; 
But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, 

He sees it in his joy : 
The Youth, who, daily, farther from the East 
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest, 

And by the vision splendid 

Is on his way attended : 
At length the Man perceives it die away, 
And fade into the light of common day. 
Earth rills her lap with pleasures of her own : 
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, 
And even with something of a Mother's mind. 

And no unworthy aim, 
The homely Nurse doth all she can 
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate, Man, 

Forget the glories he hath known 
And that Imperial Palace whence he came. 
• ••••••• 

O joy ! that in our embers 
Is something that doth live ; 
* That Nature yet remembers 
What was so fugitive ! 
The thought of our past years in me doth breed 
Perpetual benedictions ; not, indeed, 

For that which is most worthy to be blest; 
Delight and liberty, the simple creed 
Of childhood, whether busy or at rest, 
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast r 
Not for these I raise 
The song of thanks and praise, 
But for those obstinate questionings 
Of sense and outward things, 
Fallings from us, vanishings ; 
Blank misgivings of a Creature 
Moving about in worlds not realised ; 
High instincts before which our mortal nature 
Did tremble, like a guilty thing surprised ! — 
But for those first affections, 
Those shadowy recollections, 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, 311 

Which, be they what they may, 
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing : 
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
Our noisy years seem moments in the beiug 
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake 

To perish never, 
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor, 

Nor Man nor Boy, 
Nor all that is at enmity with joy, 
Can utterly abolish or destroy ! 

Hence in a season of calm weather, 

Though inland far we be, 

Our souls have sight of that immortal Sea 
Which brought us hither; 
Can, in a moment, travel thither, 
And see the children sport upon the shore, 
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devonshire, in 
1773. He received an excellent school education at Christ's 
Hospital, London, where he first gave evidence of literary 
and poetical talent. At eighteen years of age he went to 
the University of Cambridge, but did not enter with any 
ardor into academic studies. In 1793 he left Cambridge 
suddenly, in consequence of mental trouble, and went to 
London, where, in a fit of recklessness or despair, he enlisted 
as a private soldier in a regiment of dragoons, among whom 
his strange ways and evident scholarship created much sur- 
prise, until he was found out by his friends and his discharge 
procured. 

The influence of the French Revolution now took strong 
hold upon him. In 1794 he published, in conjunction with 
Southey, a drama entitled The Fall of Bobespierre, written, 
printed, and published in the short space of three days; and 
somewhat later, in the same year, delivered a course of lec- 
tures at Bristol, on the French Revolution. At this time his 
mind was full of enthusiasm for the cause of "liberty/' aud 



312 THE KIXETEEXTE CEXTUBY. THE POETS. 

the political and social reformation of mankind. His two 
friends, Eobert Lovell, and Sou they, the poet, shared these 
wild but generous fancies, and for a time the trio seriously 
proposed to emigrate to America, found a commune, or 
" Pantisocracy," as they called it, on the banks of the Sus- 
quehanna, and bring back the Golden Age. In their selection 
of a site, as he afterwards admitted, they were not governed 
by any knowledge of the country or the people, but simply 
by the musical name of the river. An unforeseen event 
broke up this fantastic plan : the three Utopians fell in love 
with, and married, three ladies — sisters — of Bristol. 

Coleridge still continued his literary labors, though with 
small success, until the liberality of a wealthy gentleman 
placed him in possession of a small income. He then went 
to Germany, where he learned the language, made the ac- 
quaintance of several distinguished men of letters, and began 
the study of German literature, of which he was almost the 
first to open the treasures to the English public, by transla- 
tions and critical observations. He also plunged deep into 
German metaphysical and mystical philosophy, which gave 
a coloring to all his writings. 

On his return from Germany, Coleridge took up his resi- 
dence at Keswick, in Cumberland, also the residence of 
Southey, where he spent some years in literary pursuits ; and 
then paid a visit to Malta, where, for a short time, he held an 
official appointment. Returning to England, he visited 
France and Italy. 

The great calamity of Coleridge's life was his addiction to 
the use of opium, which had the most pernicious influence 
on both body and mind. After many fruitless struggles to 
free himself from this enthralling habit, he finally took up 
his residence with a Dr. Gilman, in the neighborhood of 
London, and became at once his patient and an inmate of 
his family. He died in 1831. 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 313 

Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey have frequently been 
grouped together under the title of "the Lake school of , 
poets ; " but in reality there is little beyond the facts of their 
long and intimate friendship, and their residence in the same 
district of country, to account for this association. It is true 
that between Wordsworth and Coleridge there was a partial 
community of views in regard to the principles of poetry, and 
the latter had drunk, as well as the former, but much more 
deeply, at the fountains of German poetry and philosophy; 
but there was a great difference in their genius, and their 
moods of thought and expression ; while with Southey, as 
compared with the other two, there was a still wider diver- 
gence. Wordsworth's poetry is grave, meditative, ethical, 
always reserving a moral, and rarely, if ever, sportive, or 
allowing fair play to the imagination merely for its delight- 
someness. K"or does he give much care to the refinement 
and perfection of his form. Southey deals by preference 
with external objects rather than emotions: he writes for 
the eye more than for the heart ; his genius leads him to 
gorgeous descriptions of scenery or pageantry, and he delights 
in pomp and splendor, rather than delicacy and melody of 
diction. 

Coleridge, the most richly poetical mind of the three, has 
at once the tenderest emotion and the most delicate and 
ethereal imagination. While many of his pieces have a pro- 
found religious or ethical bearing, the poetic impulse, or 
what is commonly called "inspiration," is the predominant 
motive in them. He does not write to convey a lesson, but 
because lovely thoughts and imaginations crowd upon him. 
Nothing can exceed the tenderness and beauty of many of 
his pieces; while in ideality, or that faculty of the imagina- 
tion by which it soars to regions of thought and feeling which 
transcend earthly experience, he is only surpassed by Shelley. 

The poems of Coleridge, although never labored, have 

14 



314 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

exquisite finish and rare felicity of expression. With him as 
^ with Goethe — though there is little resemblance in other 
points — the form was coequal with the matter; that is, the 
diction, versification, structure, and size of the poem were con- 
sidered as haying the same relation to the thought that the 
body has to the soul; and the same impulse which gave 
birth to the thought, suggested also the form in which it 
should be embodied. No poetry has been produced in our 
language in which this perfect harmony of form and sub- 
stance has been more exquisitely effected than in the best 
pieces of Coleridge ; and hence he is one of the most origi- 
nal of poets. 

No one, not even Wordsworth, has a purer tone, or more 
profound sympathies, while he surpasses the latter in warmth, 
in passion, and in perception of many phases of human 
emotion, especially the subtler and tenderer affections. 

It w T as the great misfortune of Coleridge, that — probably 
from the enfeeblement of his will by indulgence in opium — 
he was incapable of prolonged effort, and frittered away his 
time and l>is precious gifts in interminable conversations 
which dazzled and bewildered his hearers, and in notes, 
scraps, and sketches of work never to be done. His poems 
are nearly all short, and many of the finest, such as Christa- 
del, mere fragments. His mind also consumed its strength 
in profitless and aimless wanderings in metaphysical regions, 
where, not qualified for elaborating a complete system of 
philosophy, it strayed into interminable vague speculations, 
and " found no end, in wandering mazes lost." As it is, his 
works are like a handful of gems of the purest water, scat- 
tered through a heap of fragments and chippings of stone. 
We see that rare and precious materials have been handled, 
but find no palace built or adorned. 

One of the most generally admired of Coleridge's poems 
is the piece entitled Love, which we subjoin almost entire: 



SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. 315 

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, 

Whatever stirs this mental frame, 
All are but ministers of love, 
And feed his sacred flame. 

Oft in my waking dreams do I 

Live o'er again that happy hour 
When midway on the mount I lay 
Beside the ruined tower. 

The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene, 

Had blended with the lights of eve, 
And she was there, my hope, my joy, 
My own dear Genevieve I 

She leant against the arm&d man, 
The statue of the arm^d knight; 
She stood and listened to my lay 
Amid the lingering light. 

Few sorrows hath she of her own, 

My hope, my joy, my Genevieve : 
She loves me best whene'er I sing 
The sougs that make her grieve. 

I played a soft and doleful air, 

I sang an old and moving story — 
An old rude song that suited well 
That ruin wild and hoary. 

She listened with a flitting blush, 

With downcast eyes and modest grace ; 
For well she knew I could not choose 
But gaze upon her face. 

I told her of the knight that wore 

Upon his shield a burning brand, 
And how for ten long years he wooed 
The Lady of the Land. 

I told her how he pined ; and, ah ! 

The deep, the low, the pleading tone 
In which I sang another's love * 

Interpreted my own. 



316 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

All impulses of soul and sense 

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve : 
The music and the doleful tale, 
The rich and balmy eve ; 

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, 

An undistinguishable throng, 
And gentle wishes long subdued, 
Subdued and cherished long ! 

She wept with pity and delight, 

She blushed with love and virgin shame, 
And like the murmur of a dream 
I heard her breathe my name. 

Her bosom heaved — she stept aside — 

As conscious of my look she stept — 
Then suddenly, with timorous eye, 
She fled to me and wept. 

She half inclosed me with her arms, 

She pressed me with a meek embrace, 
And bending back her head, looked up 
And gazed upon my face. 

'Twas partly love and partly fear, 

And partly 'twas a bashful art 

That I might rather feel, than see, 

The swelling of her heart. 

I calmed her fears, and she was calm, 

And told her love with virgin pride ; 
And so I won my Genevieve, 

My bright and beauteous bride. 

In a higher strain is his France, an Ode, of which we give 
the first strophe : 

Ye clouds that far above me float and pause, 
Whose pathless march no mortal may control ; 
Ye ocean-waves, that wheresoever ye roll, 

Yie^id homage only to eternal laws ; 

Ye woods that listen to the night-birds singing, 
Midway the smooth and perilous slope reclined, 



ROBERT SOUTHEY. 317 

Save where your own imperious branches swinging 
Have made a solemn music of the wind ; 

Where, like a man beloved of God, 

Through gloom which never woodman trod, 

How oft, pursuing fancies holy, 
My moonlight way o'er flowering weeds I wound, 

Inspired, beyond the guess of folly, 
By each rude shape and wild unconquerable sound ! 

O ye loud Waves ! and O ye Forests high ! 
And O ye Clouds that far above me soared ! 
Thou rising Sun ! thou blue rejoicing Sky! 
Yea, eveiything that is and will be free, 
Bear witness for me wheresoe'er ye be, 
With what deep worship I have still adored 
The spirit of divinest Liberty ! 

Robert Southey, the intimate friend of both Wordsworth 
and Coleridge, was born near Bristol, in 1774. In 1792 he 
became a student of Baliol College, in the University of Ox- 
ford. His original intention was to enter the Church, but he 
hesitated in his choice of a profession, and finally went to 
London to study for the bar. His tastes from boyhood had 
been strongly literary, and, at the age of nineteen, being 
filled with youthful enthusiasm at the stirring events which 
were then occurring, and, in his own words, "ignorant 
enough of history and of human nature to believe that a 
happier order of things had commenced with the independ- 
ence of the United States, and would be accelerated by the 
French Revolution," he produced, in the short space of six 
weeks, Joan of Arc, an epic poem, in twelve books, in honor 
of the country which he considered the second birthplace 
of human liberty. The poem was well received, and gained 
the young poet a reputation which determined him not long 
after to adopt literature as a profession. 

He resided, during the greater part of his life, at Kes- 
wick, in the Lake district of Cumberland, and in this beau- 
tiful and retired spot gave himself up to study and literary 



SIS THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

work with an ardor and industry which have been seldom 
equalled. His knowledge was extensive, rather than pro- 
found; his imagination active, and his powers of expres- 
sion, in verse or prose, copious, vigorous, and indefatigable. 
He wrote poems, history, reviews, biography, essays, all with 
equal fluency, and about equally well. His chief poems are 
Thalaba, a romantic poem, founded on Arabian mythology, 
of which the scene is laid in Arabia ; The Curse of Kehama, 
founded on the wild superstitions of the Hindoo mythology ; 
Madoc, an epic poem on the supposed discovery of the West- 
ern Continent by a Welsh prince and his followers, in the 
twelfth century ; Roderick, an epic poem on the invasion of 
Spain by the Saracens ; and Ballads and Metrical Tales. 
His chief prose writings are the Life of Nelson, Life of 
Wesley, Life of Bunyan, and the Naval History of 
England. 

In his earlier life he had been, as we have said, filled with 
wild and visionary, but generous, enthusiasm about the 
progress of human freedom ; and, finding the prospects of 
republicanism not promising in England, planned, with his ; 
friend Coleridge, to emigrate to America, and found a sort 
of commune, as has already been noticed in our sketch of 
Coleridge. This dream of youth soon passed away, and he 
became a vigorous and eloquent partisan of monarchy, and a 
stanch Tory, and was appointed Poet-Laureate, on the 
death of Pye, in 1813. This change of sentiments gave 
abundant opportunity for his enemies to brand him as a 
traitor and venal renegade, attacks which he was not slow to 
meet. But we can now see that they were as unjust to him 
as he was to Byron and Shelley, at a time when excited pas- 
sions obscured the better judgment ; and that Southey was 
quite as honest in his Toryism as he had been in his Kepub- 
licanism. 

After a life of unceasing literary toil, during which he 



ROBERT SOUTHEY. 319 

had been offered, and had refused, a seat in Parliament and 
a baronetcy, his vigorous mind gave way, and his faculties 
became gradually impaired by slow disease of the brain. He 
died in 1843. 

As a poet, Southey is distinguished more by liveliness of 
imagination, fertility of invention, and an easy fluency of 
style, than by those deeper qualities that belong to great 
poets. His poems please and entertain, but rarely move us 
deeply ; and spring from an active brain rather than a beat- 
ing heart. Even in the best, fine passages are scattered about 
with long intervals of metrical prose. In truth, Southey 
wrote too fast and too much, and his industry and fluent 
composition at once urged and tempted him to hurry his 
thoughts into yerse, and his verse into print, before he had 
ripened and chastened them. He also read too much and 
too diffusely ; and his crowded memory, ever ready to supply 
a mediaeval incident, a monkish legend, or bit of half- for- 
gotten chronicle, to his ready pen, led him to do injustice to 
his own originality. Literature was to him the business of t 
life, and he worked at it indefatigably, producing every day 
a fixed amount of verse and prose, with almost the regularity 
of a machine. 

In his prose style Southey is vigorous, natural, simple, and 
graceful ; and his biographies, though perhaps wanting in 
insight, very pleasing reading. His critical papers, like most 
of the critical work of the time, are limited and unscientific ; 
that is, they do not take up a work as a phenomenon to be 
studied in all its bearings, that we may arrive at a clear con- 
ception of the causes that originated and the mind that pro- 
duced it; but praise or blame, in accordance with certain 
preconceived standards in the critic's mind. His inability 
to comprehend the genius of Byron, because of his distaste 
for that poet's political, social, and religious obliquities, is a 
notable example of this defect. 



320 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

To give a correct idea of Southey's peculiar powers, a 
somewhat extended extract is necessary: we have selected 
(and considerably condensed) the opening scene of his most 
highly-finished poem, TJie Curse of Eeliama : 

Midnight, and yet no eye 
Through all the Imperial City closed in sleep ! 

Behold her streets ablaze 
With light that seems to kindle the red sky, 
Her myriads swarming through the crowded ways ! 
Master and slave, old age and infancy, 
All, all, abroad to gaze : 
House-top and balcony 
Clustered with women, who throw back their veils, 

With unimpeded and insatiate sight, 
To view the funeral pomp w r hich passes by, 

As if the mournful rite 
Were but to them a scene of joyanee and delight. 



Vainly, ye blessed twinklers of the night, 
Your feeble beams ye shed, 
Quenched in the unnatural light which might outstare 
Even the broad eye of day ; 
And thou, from thy celestial way, 
Pourest, O Moon, an ineffectual ray : 
For lo ! ten thousand torches flame and flare 
Upon the midnight air, 
Blotting the lights of heaven 
With one portentous glare. 
Behold the fragrant smoke, in many a fold 
Ascending, floats along the fiery sky, 
And hangeth visible on high, 
A dark and waving canopy ! 

Hark ! 'tis the funeral trumpet's breath ! 
'Tis the dirge of death ! 
At once ten thousand drums begin, 
With one long thunder-peal the ear assailing : 
Ten thousand voices then join in, 
And with one deep and general din 



BOBEBT SOUTHEY. 321 

Pour their wild wailing. 
The song of praise is drowned 
Amid the deafening sound : 
You hear no more the trumpet's tone, 
You hear no more the mourner's moan, 
Though the trumpet's breath and the dirge of death 
Swell with commingled force the funeral yell. 
But rising over all, in one acclaim, 
Is heard the echoed and re-echoed name 
From all that countless rout — 
" Arvalan ! Arvalan ! 
Arvalan ! Arvalan ! " 
Ten times ten thousand voices in one shout 
Call " Arvalan ! " The overpowering sound 
From house to house repeated, rings about, 
From town to town rolls around. 



The death-procession moves along : 
Their bald heads shining to the torches' ray, 
The Brahmins lead the way, 
Chanting the funeral song. 



Oh sight of grief ! the wives of Arvalan, 
Young Azla, young Nealliny, are seen ! 

Their widow-robes of white, 

With gold and jewels bright, 

Each like an Eastern queen. 
Woe ! woe ! around their palanquin, 

As on a bridal-day, 
With symphony and dance and song, 
Their kindred and their friends come on, 
The dance of sacrifice ! the funeral song ! 
And next the victim-slaves in long array, 
Richly bedight to grace the fatal day, 

Move onward to their death. 

The clarion's stirring breath 
Lifts their thin robes in every flowing fold 

And swells the woven gold 

That on the agitated air 
Flutters and glitters to the torches' glare. 

14* 



322 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

Far, far behind, beyond all reach of sight, 
In ordered files the torches flow along, 

One ever-lengthening line of gliding light. 
Far, far behind, 

Rolls on the ^indistinguishable clamor 
Of horn and trump and tambour ; 
Incessant as the roar 

Of streams which down the wintry mountain pour, 
And louder than the dread commotion 
Of breakers on the rocky shore, 
When the winds rage over the waves, 
And Ocean to the tempest raves. 

And now toward the bank they go, 
Where, winding on their way below, 
Deep and strong the waters flow. 
Here doth the funeral pile appear 
With myrrh and ambergris bestrewed, 
And built of precious sandal- wood, 
They cease their music and their outcry here ; 
Gently they rest the bier ; 
They wet the face of Arvalan, — 
No sign of life the sprinkled drops excite ; 
They feel his breast, — no motion there ; 
* They feel his lips, — no breath ; 
For not with feeble nor with erring hand 
The brave avenger dealt the blow of death. 
Then with a doubling peal and deeper blast, 
The tambours and the trumpets sound on high, 
And with a last and loudest cry 
They call on Arvalan. 

Woe ! woe ! for Azla takes her seat 

Upon the funeral pile ! 
Calmly she took her seat, 
Calmly the whole terrific pomp surveyed ; 

As on her lap the while 
The lifeless head of Arvalan was laid. 

Woe ! woe ! Xealliny, 
' The young Nealliny, — 
They strip her ornaments away, 
Bracelet and anklet, ring and chain and zone : 



BOBERT SOUTHEY. 323 

Around her neck they leave 

The marriage-knot alone, — 
That marriage-band which, when 

Yon waning moon was 3'oung, 
Around her virgin neck 

With bridal joy was hung ; 
Then with white flowers, the coronal of death, 

Her jetty locks they crown. 



Oh sight of misery ! 
You cannot hear her cries, — their sound 
In that wild dissonance is drowned; 

But in her face you see 

The supplication and the agony, — 
See in her swelliug throat the desperate strength 

That with vain effort struggles yet for life ; 
Her arms contracted now in fruitless strife, 

Now wildly at full length 
Towards the crowd in vain for pity spread, 
They force her on, they bind her to the dead. 



Then all around retire: 
Circling the pile, the ministering Brahmins stand, 

Each lifting in his hand a torch on fire. 
Alone the Father of the dead advanced, 

And lit the funeral pyre. 



At once on every side 

The circling torches drop ; 

At once on every side 

The fragrant oil is poured ; 

At once on every side 

The rapid flames rush up. 
Then hand in hand the victim-band 
Roll in the dance around the funeral pyre : 

Their garments' flying folds 

Float inward to the fire ; 
In drunken whirl they wheel around ; 

One drops, — another plunges in ; 

And still with overwhelming din 
The tambours and the trumpets sound ; 



324 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

And clap of hand, and shouts, and cries, 

From all the multitude arise ; 

While round and round, in giddy wheel, 

Intoxicate they roll and reel, 

Till, one by one, whirled in, they fall, 

And the devouring flames have swallowed all. 

Then all was still : the drums and clarions ceased ; 
The multitude were hushed in silent awe ; 
Only the roaring of the flames was heard. 



CHAPTEE XXIX. 

The Poets, continued.— Byron — Shelley — Keats. 

The two poets of whom we shall next speak were far more 
powerfully and permanently influenced by the ideas and 
agitations then moving society, partly on account of their 
much greater impressibility of temperament, and partly 
owing to their peculiar relations to society itself. Both were 
of patrician birth ; both had placed themselves, by their con- 
duct, in opposition to the society to which they belonged, 
which retorted with a storm of vituperation and obloquy ; and 
both, in consequence, were driven to the Continent, where 
they sought, from preference, that society in which the revo- 
lutionary ideas were most enthusiastically received. Here 
their greatest works were composed, which are all deeply 
tinged with a spirit of defiance toward the forces which had 
been arrayed against them, but assuming different guises, in 
accordance with the different circumstances and characters 
of the men. 

George Gordon, Baron Byron, or, as he is always desig- 
nated, Lord Byroi*, was born in London, on the 22d of 
January, 1788. Into the particulars of his life we do not pro- 
pose to enter, except in the slightest way, as connected with 
his literary career. It was his great misfortune to have been 
without proper parental guidance, and to have succeeded, 
when a mere child, to a title of nobility, which then, more 
than now, made the possessor of it the object of flattery from 



326 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

the servile, and of disproportioned respect from others. The 
consciousness of his rank, which was perpetually obtruded 
upon him, and an exceeding degree of sensitiveness in his 
nature, produced an ill-balanced temperament, compounded 
of shyness and arrogance, which frequently led him into very 
ill-advised conduct, and laid him open to very unjust attacks, 
as well as to deserved censure. Throughout his life this still 
clung to him, and prompted him, when injured or wounded, 
to retort by haughty defiance, bitter sarcasm, or affected 
scorn ; instead of a frank acquiescence in, or a manly indif- 
ference to, the just or unjust judgment. 

In 1807, while in his nineteenth year, he published a 
volume of juvenile poems, entitled Hours of Idleness, of very 
inferior merit ; to which he attached a preface, genuinely 
modest in spirit, but containing allusions to his rank which 
were readily misinterpreted by those who did not choose to 
make allowance for the raw judgment of a boy. A review 
of the book in the Edinburgh Review, from the pen of the 
celebrated critic Jeffrey, exhibited the literary defects of the 
poems justly, but with a severity of expression and an insult- 
ing tone of sarcasm (due to the political partisanship of the 
reviewer) which were little less than brutal. Byron, wounded 
and exasperated, replied, in 1809, with his satire, English 
Bards and Scotch Reviewers. In this work he shows a great 
advance in power, and a surprising mastery of expression in 
so young a writer ; but the whole force of the poem, as a 
poem, is destroyed by its being so evidently instigated by 
private and personal grievances ; a fact which lowers it from 
the position of satire to that of lampoon. 

In the same year he yisited the south of Europe, Greece, 
and the Levant, where he travelled for two years. On his 
return to England, he published the first and second Cantos 
of Childe Harold^ which, though inferior to those which fol- 
lowed, raised him to a high poetical reputation, and gave 



BYROK 327 

evidence of rare genius. The Eastern romances or tales, 
The Giaour, The Bride of Abydos, which he next gave the 
public (in 1813), still more clearly showed Byron's power of 
description and command of an easy and melodious, yet vig- 
orous, versification. His descriptions of scenery go far beyond 
mere word-painting, like Southey's; they exhibit not merely 
the scene, but the impressions which the scene produces on 
a highly imaginative mind. On the other hand, the charac- 
ters are altogether unreal — mere melodramatic figures — and 
much of the sentiment, though eloquently expressed, hollow, 
turgid, and affected. The same remarks may be applied to 
The Corsair (1813) and Lara (1814), though his great power 
of expression, what we may call his eloquence, was still more 
fully exhibited. 

These poems were followed by The Siege of Corinth and 
Parisina, both published in 1816, in the latter of which 
there is more of nature and true feeling than in his pre- 
vious tales. 

Circumstances, too well known to demand recapitulation 
here, caused him again to leave England finally in 1816, 
and proceed to Italy, where he took up his residence. 
While on his way thither he wrote The Prisoner of Chillon, 
the most beautiful and affecting of his tales. The rest of 
his narrative poems are Beppo, a light story, exhibiting 
extraordinary ease and fluency of story-telling in verse; 
Mazeppa, a powerful bit of descriptive writing, and The 
Island ; which were all written in Italy. 

During this long residence in Italy, which lasted until 
1823, he turned his attention to dramatic poetry, and pro- 
duced Manfred (1817), Marino Faliero (1820), Heaven 
and Earth (1821), Sardanapalus (1821), The Two Foscari 
(1821), The Deformed Transformed (1821), Cain (1821), 
and Werner (1822). 

We have not space to go into anything like a detailed 



328 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

examination of these works : suffice it to say, that they 
possess the characteristic beauties and defects of his other 
poems. They are vigorous, clear and eloquent in diction, 
often exquisitely tender, almost throughout lofty in thought, 
and enriched with passages of grand imagination. They 
have all that air of unreality about them which attaches 
to nearly all Byron's works. He studied — too closely — his 
own heart, and he was a fervent lover of nature ; but he 
did not study human nature, either broadly or in individual 
character. Hence these dramas have in all, but one care- 
fully elaborated character, under various names ; and this 
is the haughty, suffering, defiant spirit which Byron wished 
himself to be considered, and which he had constructed 
out of his own character by exaggerating the pride, and 
eliminating the common-sense and humor. Thus they all 
lack vitality, and may be called dramatic poems rather 
than dramas. Werner, perhaps, though not equal in poetic 
power to some others, most nearly approaches a genuine 
drama of character. 

But by far the greatest poems of Byron, and those on 
which his fame principally rests, are the two last cantos of 
Childe Harold (published 1816-1818), and his Don Juan. 

The former is a theme and a form exactly suited to his 
powers. To pass in review, in the character of a lonely pil- 
grim, the most celebrated places and regions of history; to 
call up in imagination the scenes which have made these 
renowned, and compare the past with the present ; to render 
in glowing language the impressions produced by such 
scenery upon his soul ; and to indulge in solemn reverie, — 
this was a task for which he was of all men best fitted. To 
such a theme the long, sad, majestic roll of the Spenserian 
stanza is exactly adapted. Its elaborate complexity and 
repeated rhymes would appear unnatural if used for slight or 
vivacious subjects; but exactly accord with the brooding 



BYROK 329 

melancholy, the deep meditation, and grand elaboration of 
thought of CMlde Harold ; while the ease with which he 
surmounts the metrical and rhythmical difficulties, displays 
the poet's wonderful mastery of language and versification. 

Don Juan, as a mere work of art, is in many points fully 
equal to CMlde Harold, though in dignity and moral tone 
immeasurably below it. The keenness and brilliancy of the 
satire; the delineation of certain aspects of human nature 
(which makes this the most real of all Byron's poems) ; the 
sparkling wit ; the perfect expression ; and the various pas- 
sages of exquisite beauty, pathos, and tenderness, mark it as 
the production of the richest genius. It is unspeakably to 
be regretted that these exquisite powers were employed on a 
subject so immoral, and exercised in scoffing at all that man 
should consider most precious and sacred. 

Of course Don Juan should never be placed in the hands 
of the young. And not only this, but there is a danger of 
another kind than that to morals attending the study of 
much of Byron's poetry. His imagination is so rich and his 
language so glowing, that his works are specially adapted to 
fascinate the young, whom the splendid unreality, the impos- 
ing egotism, the grand, but often hollow, sentiment, are too 
apt to inoculate with a foolish enthusiasm for a false and ab- 
surd ideal. These remarks only apply to indiscriminate and 
unguarded reading: there is, happily, much of this great 
poet's work, the study of which cannot be productive of 
aught but good. 

Throughout Byron's life he had been a passionate, if some- 
what injudicious, enthusiast for what he believed to be the 
cause of human liberty. It will easily be understood, then, 
that his sympathies were powerfully awakened by the struggle 
of Greece to wrest her freedom from the Turks. He not only 
aided the Greek cause pecuniarily, but determined to offer 
his personal assistance, visiting Greece for that purpose in 



330 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

1823. He died of a fever, at Missolonghi, on April 19, 
1824 

Our selections from Byron are the description of a storm 
in the Alps, found in the third Canto of Childe Harold, 
and part of the sublime address to the Ocean, in the fourth 
Canto. 

The sky is changed— and such a change ! O Night, 
And Storm, and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 

Yet lovely in your strength, as is the light 
Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 

Leaps the live thunder ! Not from one lone cloud, 
But every mountain now hath found a tongue, 

And Jura answers, through her misty shroud, 
Back to the joyous Alps, who call to her aloud ! 

And this is in the night : — most glorious night ! 

Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 
A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, 

A portion of the tempest and of thee ! 

How the lit lake shines, a phosphoric sea, 
An$ the big rain comes dancing to the earth ! 

And now again 'tis black — and now, the glee 

Of the loud hills shakes with its mountain-mirth, 

As if they did rejoice o'er a young earthquake's birth. 

Now, where the swift Rhone cleaves his way between 

Heights which appear as lovers who have parted 
In hate, whose mining depths so intervene 

That they can meet no more, though broken-hearted ; 

Though in their souls, which thus each other thwarted, 
Love was the very root of the fond rage 

Which blighted their life's bloom, and then departed ; — 
Itself expired, but leaving them an age 
Of years all winters, — war within themselves to wage. 

Now, where the quick Rhone thus has cleft his way, 
The mightiest of the storms has ta'en his stand : 

For here not one, but many, make their play, 
And fling their thunderbolts from hand to hand, 



BYROK 331 

Flashing and cast around : of all the band 
The brightest through these parted hills has fork'd 

His lightnings, — as if he did understand 
That in such gaps as desolation work'd 
There the hot shaft should blast whatever therein lurk'd. 

Sky, mountains, river, winds, lake, lightnings ! ye 

With night, and clouds, and thunder, and a soul 
To make these felt and feeling, well may be 

Things that have made me watchful ; the far roll 

Of your departing voices is the knoll 
Of what in me is sleepless, if I rest : 

But where of ye, O tempests ! is the goal ? 
Are ye like those within the human breast ? 
Or do ye find, at length, like eagles, some high nest ? 



Eoll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean — roll ! 

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; 
Man marks the earth with ruin — his control 

Stops with the shore : upon the watery plain 

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain 
A shadow of man's ravage — save his own, 

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, 
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, 
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoflined, and unknown. 

His steps are not upon thy paths, — thy fields 
Are not a spoil for him, — thou dost arise, 

And shake him from thee ; the vile strength he wields 
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, 
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, 

And send'st him shivering, in thy playful spray, 
And howling to his gods, where haply lies 

His petty hope in some near port or bay ; 
And dashest him again to earth ; — there let him lay. 

The armaments which thunders trike the walls 
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, 

And monarchs tremble in their capitals, 
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make 



332 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS, 

Their clay creator the vain title take 
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of- war, — 

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, 
They melt into thy yest of waves, which mar 
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar. 

Thy shores are Empires, changed in all save thee : 
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they ? 

Thy waters wasted them while they were free, 
And many a tyrant since ; their shores obey 
The stranger, slave, or savage ; their decay 

Has dried up realms to deserts ; not so thou ; 
Unchangeable, save to thy wild waves' play, 

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow : 
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. 

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 

Glasses itself in tempests ! in all time, 
Calm or convulsed, — in breeze, or gale, or storm, 

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 

Dark-heaving — boundless, endless, and sublime : 
The image of Eternity — the throne 

Of the Invisible ; even from out thy slime 
The monsters of the deep are made : each zone 
Obeys thee : thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. 

Peecy Bysshe Shelley was born on the 4th of August, 
1792, at Field Place, in Sussex. In his childhood he showed 
signs of unusual genius and imagination, which caused him 
to be considered eccentric. At thirteen years of age he was 
sent to Eton, where he was treated with much harshness and 
injustice, both by the master and the pupils, on account of 
his indomitable resistance to the system of " fagging " — an 
ancient custom which assigned each new pupil as a "fag," or 
servant, to an older one, who, too frequently, exercised his 
authority with abominable tyranny and cruelty. The trial 
to which he was subjected was a severe one, but it rooted in 
his mind an unconquerable determination to devote his life 
to the championship of liberty in every form. 

From Eton he went to Oxford, where he rashly prepared 



SHELLEY. 333 

and circulated a pamphlet, in which he endeavored to point 
out defects in the arguments then in use to prove the exist- 
ence of a God. Instead of endeavoring to set him right by 
reason, remonstrance, or friendly counsel, the authorities ex- 
pelled him from the University, and, in consequence of this 
expulsion, his father, Sir Timothy Shelley, forbid him to re- 
turn to his house. Thus, as his biographer says, "when less 
than nineteen, fragile in health and frame, of the purest 
habits in morals, full of devoted generosity and universal 
kindness, glowing with ardor to obtain wisdom, resolved, at 
every personal sacrifice, to do right, burning with a desire 
for affection and sympathy, — he was treated as a reprobate — 
cast forth as a criminal." 

"While living in the most frugal manner on a small stipend 
allowed him by his father, he married a young lady not at all 
qualified to promote his happiness. After a married life of two 
years they separated, Mrs. Shelley taking her two children 
to her father's house. After her death, Shelley endeavored 
to obtain possession of his children, but was forbidden by a 
decree of Lord Chancellor Eldon, on account of the want of 
orthodoxy in his religious opinions, and the children were 
placed under the guardianship of a stranger. In 1816, he 
married Miss Godwin, daughter of the author of Political 
Justice, Caleb Williams, and other works. 

Shelley's first poetical production of any importance was 
Queen Mob, a work of much crudity and rashness of judg- 
ment, but showing surprising genius in one little more than 
a boy. In 1818, he published his Revolt of Islam. In the 
spring of this year he took up his residence in Italy, where 
he made the acquaintance of Byron, an acquaintance which 
soon ripened into friendship. In the same year he wrote 
Rosalind and Helen, Julian and Maddalo, and Lines writ- 
ten among the Euganean Hills. In 1819, amid the enormous 
and picturesque ruins of the Baths of Caracalla, he wrote 



334 THE NINETEENTH VENTJTRT. THE POETS. 

what is perhaps his grandest poem, Prometheus Unbound, 
and in the same year his powerful tragedy, The Cenci. In 
1820, he produced his Ode to a Skylark, Ode to Naples, 

Sicellfoot, the Tyrant (a grotesque satiric drama on George 
IV.), The Sensitive Plant, and The Witch of Atlas. 

In 1821, Shelley's enthusiasm was aroused by the efforts 
of the Greeks to throw off the Ottoman yoke, and under its 
influence he produced the lyrical drama, Hellas. In the 
same year he wrote Epipsychidion, inspired by the fate of a 
beautiful and unfortunate Italian lady; and Adonais, a 
monody on the death of Keats. 

In 1822, while sailing with a friend of the name of Wil- 
liams, in the Gulf of Leghorn, a sudden squall arose, and 
the boat foundered, or was run down. The two bodies were 
found on the beach some days afterwards ; and as the quaran- 
tine regulations of the port compelled all things cast up on 
the shore to be burned, as a precaution against the plague, a 
funeral pyre was erected by Lord Byron and Mr. Trelawney, 
a common friend, and the bodies consumed by fire on the 
loth of August. Shelley's ashes were entombed in the beau- 
tiful Protestant cemetery at Borne, by the pyramid of Cains 
Cestius. The inscription on his tomb is Cor Cordium. 

Shelley may be safely termed the most poetical poet in our 
language. Those ideal heights, that elevation of soul, 
which in most poets is reserved for their moments of 
loftiest inspiration, was the natural level of his spirit ; while 
in his higher flights he ascends into ethereal regions of 
thought whither it is almost impossible to follow. In his 
thought, as well as in his nature, he seemed to have less of 
earthliness than other men. Hence the criticism that is 
sometimes made of the " want of human interest n in his 
poems, which one can almost fancy the production of some 
unbodied spirit, sympathising with, but not sharing, the 
grossness of humanity. 



SHELLEY. 335 

It was this ideality, this finer spirit of poetry, which the 
literature of the period needed as a counteracting force to 
the tendency of naturalism to sink into triviality ; and thus 
Shelley, with his ethereal spirits, and Keats, with gods and 
demi-gods, are a counterpoise to Wordsworth and Moore, 
with the humble peasants of the one, and the drawing-room 
sentimentality of the other. In this way Shelley's influence 
has been deep and lasting on modern literature. 

In poetical form none have ever surpassed him. His 
versification is exquisitely free, varied, and musical, and his 
diction natural, yet richly poetical, and only obscured by the 
intensity and the subtlety of his imagination. 

The magnificence of Shelley's poetical powers can best be 
seen in his Prometheus Unbound; but of the exquisite 
beauty and grace of his lyrics, the Ode to a Skylark, which 
we subjoin, is a fine example : 

Hail to thee, blithe spirit ! 

Bird thou never wert, 
That from heaven, or near it, 

Pourest thy full heart 
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art. 

Higher still and higher 

From the earth thou springest ; 
Like a cloud of fire 

The blue deep thou wingest, 
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest. 

In the golden lightning 

Of the sunken sun, 
O'er which clouds are brightening, 
Thou dost float and run, 
Like an embodied Joy whose race is just begun. 

The pale purple even 

Melts around thy flight: 
Like a star of heaven 

In the broad day-light, 
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight 



336 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS, 

Keen as are the arrows 

Of that silver sphere 
Whose intense lamp narrows 

In the white dawn clear 
Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there. 

All the earth and air 

With thy voice is loud ; 
As, when night is bare, 
From one lonely cloud 
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed. 

"What thou art we know not : 

What is most like thee 2 
From rainbow clouds there flow not 
Drops so bright to see, 
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody. 

Like a poet, hidden 

In the light of thought, 
Singing hymns unbidden, 

Till the world is wrought 
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not : 

Like a high-born maiden 

In a palace tower, 
Soothing her love-laden 
Soul in secret hour. 
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower ; 

Like a glow-worm golden 

In a dell of dew, 
Scattering unbeholden 

Its atrial hue 
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the view : 

Like a rose embowered 

In its own green leaves, 
By warm winds deflowered, 

Till the sceut it gives 
Makes faint with too much sweet those heavy-winged thieves. 



SHELLEY. 337 

Sound of vernal showers 
On the twinkling grass, 
Rain-awakened flowers — 
All that ever was 
Joyous, clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass ! 

Teach us, sprite or bird. 

What sweet thoughts are thine: 
I have never heard 

Praise of love or wine 
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine ! 

Chorus hymeneal, 

Or triumphal chaunt, 
Matched with thine would be all 

But an empty vaunt — 
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want. 

What objects are the fountains 

Of thy happy strain ? 
What fields, or waves, or mountains ? 
What shapes of sky or plain ? 
What love of thine own kind ? what ignorance of pain ? 

With thy clear keen joyance 

Langour cannot be : 
Shadow of annoj^ance 
ISever came near thee : 
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety. 

Waking or asleep, 

Thou of death must deem 
Things more true and deep 

Than we mortals dream, 
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream ? 

We look before and after, 

And pine for what is not : 
Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught; 
Our sweetest joys are those that tell of saddest thought. 
15 



338 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

Yet, if we could scorn 

Hate, and pride, and fear ; 
If we were things born 
Not to shed a tear, 
I know hot how thy joy we ever should come near. 

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound, 
Better than all treasures 

That in books are found, 
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground ! 

Teach me half the gladness 

That thy brain must know, 
Such harmonious madness 
From my lips would flow, 
The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

Passion, ideality, susceptibility to beauty, are found in all 
great poets, but they may be differently apportioned, as in 
the case with the three whose names we have joined in this 
chapter. Byron had more of passion than the other two ; 
Shelley more ideality than any poet in the language ; but in 
exquisite susceptibility to beauty in every form, both were 
surpassed by their younger contemporary. 

Joh^ Keats was born in London, on October 29th, 1795. 
His parents were in moderately comfortable circumstances, 
and sent him to a good school, where he distinguished him- 
self by his passionate sensibility, his generous and affectionate 
disposition, and his indomitable pugnacity, no less than by 
his intellectual gifts and ambition, through which he carried 
off all the first prizes in literature. Here he learned the 
elements of Latin, and read Virgil, but did not enter on the 
study of Greek. 

On the death of his father, Keats succeeded to a small 
patrimony, and was apprenticed to a surgeon, according to 
English custom, which looked upon surgery as a handicraft 
His poetical talent seems to have been first developed by 



KEATS. 339 

reading Spenser, whose Faerie Queene he studied with en- 
thusiastic delight. On the termination of his apprenticeship, 
Keats went to London to continue his studies in the hospi- 
tals; and here he made the acquaintance of a circle of 
friends of literature, who encouraged his inclinations. He 
was fortunate enough to find an appreciative publisher, who 
brought out a small volume of his poems, which were, how- 
ever, little noticed by the public. In 1817 he w r rote his 
Endymion, which was published the next year, and was 
bitterly and stupidly abused by the critics of the Quarterly 
Review and the Edinburgh Magazine. A notion prevailed, 
shortly after Keats's death, and is still occasionally revived, 
that the pain inflicted on the poet's sensitive mind by these 
criticisms occasioned his early death; but a reference to his 
correspondence shows that this was not at all the case. With 
perfect judgment, he discriminated between the false and the 
true in the comments of his reviewers, and while he laughed 
at their bad taste and bad temper, he set seriously about 
correcting his faults of style, and planning a w T ork which 
should be free from the defects of Endymion, and every w r ay 
more worthy of his powers. 

About this time he wrote his Isabella, founded on a tale of 
Boccacio's, and his ode To the Nightingale, and Lines on 
a Grecian Urn. In 1819, he w r rote his Eve of St. Agnes, 
and Lamia, and w r orked at his Hyperion, which was never 
finished. 

He had, unfortunately, fallen deeply and hopelessly in love 
w r ith a lady every way w r orthy his affection, but who could 
not return it ; and this passion, so far from being subdued 
by time, only increased in intensity, and caused him great 
mental anguish, under which his health gave way. Towards 
the close of the year 1819, he was attacked with hemorrhage 
from the lungs, Avhich he looked upon as the sure precursor 
of death. A journey to Italy, it was thought, offered the 



310 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

only chance of prolonging his life, and he went thither the 
next year, accompanied by Mr. Severn, a young, noble-spirited 
artist, who gave up all his prospects at home for the sake of 
being with his friend. Keats's health, however, was too much 
shattered for restoration, and, after great suffering, he died 
in the arms of his devoted and self-sacrificing friend, February 
24, 1821. His remains lie in the Protestant cemetery at 
Home, " one of the most beautiful spots on which the eye and 
heart of man can rest," close to those of Shelley. 

With the exception of Chatterton, there is no instance in 
English literature of so early a development of extraordinary 
poetic genius. A surgeon's apprentice, with but the advan- 
tage of an ordinary school education, he obtained that 
mastery of English diction which a consummate musician 
has of a perfect instrument, so that he fairly revels in an 
exuberant flow of language which, for expressiveness and 
picturesque felicity, is hardly excelled by the Elizabethan 
poets. In his Endymion especially — for in his Hyperion he 
chastened and restrained his style — he seems to abandon 
himself to the* rush of imagery, and of melodious phrase, in 
which fancy succeeds fancy, and music begets music, with- 
out an effort on the artist's part. 

With no knowledge of the Greek language, and apparently 
none, beyond that afforded by hand-books, of Greek mythol- 
ogy, he selected, by instinctive preference, Greek themes, 
and entered, as few scholars have done, into the very spirit 
of Greek art. The secret of this seems to lie not merely in 
his intense love of beauty, which he shared with the Greeks, 
but in the fact that he, like them, naturally conceived of 
beauty as a harmonizing force, while the romantic and 
modern treatment of it is that of a disturbing force. 

None have surpassed Keats in the happy audacity of 
metaphor, in the felicitous coinage of epithets, in the exact 
seizure of the phrase which will convey the most delicate 



KEATS. 341 

shade of meaning. Euskin quotes with admiration the 
lines : 

Old ocean rolls a lengthened wave to the shore, 
Down whose green back the short-lived foam, all hoar, 
Bursts gradual, with a wayward indolence. 

"The idea/' he says, "of the peculiar action with which 
foam rolls down a long, large wave, could not have been 
given by any other words so well as by this ' wayward in- 
dolence/" 

Keats, from the very beginning, broke through the tram- 
mels of versification imposed by the classical school, and 
instead of the couplets of Dryden and Pope, restored to the 
heroic verse the long harmonious period, with varied 
cadences, of the Elizabethan poets, thus bringing back the 
almost lost elements of harmony into our verse. 

It may seem surprising to those who have not studied the 
matter, but none of the poets we have mentioned since 
Shakespeare has had so great an influence on the poetry of 
the present day as Keats. In nearly every living English poet 
of note, we can see this influence — whether derived imme- 
diately, or at second-hand, through Tennyson, who might 
almost be called Keats's disciple — in the mode of thought, in 
the diction, or in the versification. 

We give, as a specimen, the Ode on a Grecian Urn : 

Thou still unravished bride of quietness ! 

Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time, 
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express 

A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme : 
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape 

Of deities, or mortals, or of both, 
In Tempe, or the dales of Arcady ? 
What men or gods are these? what maidens loth? 

What mad pursuit ? what struggle to escape ? 
What pipes and timbrels ? what wild ecstasy ? 



312 THE XIXETEEXTH VENTUBY. THE POETS. 

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard 

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on : 
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared, 

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone : 
Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave 

Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare ; 
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, 
Though winning near the goal — yet, do not grieve : 

She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss, 
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair ! 

Ah, happy, happy boughs ! that cannot shed 

Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu ; 
And happy melodist, unwearied, 

Forever piping songs forever new : 
More happy love ! more happy, happy love ! 

Forever warm and still to be enjoyed, 
Forever panting and forever young ; 
All breathing human passion far above, 

That leaves a heart high sorrowful and cloyed, 
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue. 

Who are these coming to the sacrifice ? 

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, 
Lead's t thou that heifer lowing at the skies, 

And all her silken flanks with garlands clrest ? 
What little town by river or sea-shore, 

Or mountain-built, with peaceful citadel, 
Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn ? 
And, little town, thy streets for evermore 

Will silent be ; and not a soul to tell 
"Why thou art desolate, can e'er return. 

Attic shape ! fair attitude, with brede 

Of marble men and maidens overwrought, 
With forest branches and the trodden weed: 

Thou, silent form ! dost tease us out of thought 
As doth eternity: cold pastoral ! 

When old age shall this generation waste, 
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe 
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st, 

" Beauty is truth, truth beauty " — that is all 
Ye know on earth, and all ve need to kn 



CBABBE-LANDOR. 343 

The necessary limitations of this work forbid our giving 
more than a cursory notice of the other poets who arose ia 
this great poetical awakening. One among them, Scott, 
who is entitled to a place in the first rank, will be mentioned 
among the novelists. 

George Crabbe (born 1754, died 1832) published in 1807 
a volume of narrative poetry, of which the subjects are 
drawn from homely life, and are treated with great sim- 
plicity, but with close fidelity to nature and rare skill in the 
delineation of character and feeling. His finest work is his 
Tales of the Hall 

Walter Savage Landor (born 1775, died 1864) was a 
writer of remarkable and original genius. His poem of 
Gebir, intended to rebuke military ambition, first appeared 
in 1798, and though containing many passages of sublimity 
and beauty, found little favor with the public, though 
enthusiastically admired by Sou they, Shelley, and a few 
other readers of poetic taste. This poem was originally 
composed in Latin, which language Landor wrote with 
almost as much ease as his mother-tongue, and for a while 
maintained to be the only proper language for any work 
intended to reach posterity. 

In 1824 appeared the first volume of his Imaginary Con- 
versations, which he continued, with long intervals, during 
his life. They are conversations between personages, some 
of ancient and some of modern times, and are remarkable 
for the deep insight into, and forcible expression of, charac- 
ter; for the depth, beauty, and originality of the thoughts; 
and for the manly strength and nervousness, combined with 
high finish, of the language. They are not a class of writing 
likely to be popular; but the student will find them richly 
worth his study, both for the matter and the style. 

Among his other works are The Examination of Shakes- 
peare, being an imaginary sketch of the citation of Shakes- 



344 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE POETS. 

peare, when a youth, before Sir Thomas Lucy, on the 
charge of deer-stealing; a work of which Charles Lamb 
said that "only two men could have written it : the one who 
wrote it, and the one it was written on;" Pericles and 
Aspasia; Count Julian, a tragedy; The Pentameron, 
imaginary interviews between Boccacio and Dante; and 
many poems and essays in Latin. 

Thomas Campbell (born 1777, died 1844) was a poet of 
great fire and genius, though perhaps a little too rhetorical. 
His Pleasures of Hope (1799) is a poem of great elegance, 
but exhibiting the lingering influences of the classical 
period. His lyrics, especially Hohenlinden, Tlie Battle of the 
Baltic, and The Mariners of England, are still popular for 
their spirit and vigorous rhythm. Following the great 
example of Scott, he tried the narrative form in Gertrude of 
\ Wyoming, a poem of much elegance, but fatally marred by 
his ignorance of both the characters and scenery he at- 
tempted to describe. His portraiture of an Indian chief is 
as unnatural and absurd as his description of crocodiles, 
condors, and -flamingoes in Pennsylvania ; and his account 
of the Hurons planting the olive on the Michigan. 

Thomas Moore (born 1780, died 1851) was, for a time, the 
most popular of all his contemporaries, and still remains a 
universal favorite. His works rarely evince any great depth 
of thought or passion; but they have a brilliancy of fancy, 
a sparkle of wit, an ease of expression, and an airy music of 
rhythm that captivate the multitude, who cannot appreciate 
the grand meditations of Wordsworth, the ethereal imagina- 
tion of Shelley, or the rich harmony of Keats. Moore's 
Melodies are justly admired for their sweetness and tender- 
ness ; and his Lalla Roohh for its bright imagery, exquisite 
finish, and melodious versification. 

Leigh Huxt (born 1784, died 1859) was the author of a 
number of poetic pieces of great merit, as well as of many 



OTHER POETS. 345 

graceful, genial, and original essays. His Story of Rimini is 
a poem of great beauty, and many of his shorter narrative 
pieces or parables, such as Jaffar, Abou ben Aclliem, and The 
Inevitable, are still deservedly admired. 

Samuel Eogers (born 1763, died 1855) a wealthy banker, 
and the friend of a large number of the literary men of his 
time, was himself a poet of no mean order. His Pleasures 
of Memory, Human Life, and Italy, exhibit refined and ele- 
gant taste, a pensive and gentle spirit, and are finished with 
extreme care and delicacy. 

Felicia Dorothea Hemans (born 1794, died 1835) wrote 
a great number of poems, all characterized by delicacy of 
sentiment and feminine tenderness and pathos. 

Letitia Elizabeth Laxdox (born 1802, died 1836), for 
a time widely known by her signature L. E. L., was the 
author of a poem called The Improvisatrice, and a multitude 
of occasional pieces, of so much passion and feeling as to 
gain her the title of "a female Byron." 

15* 



CHAPTER XXX. 
The Essayists. Lamb— Hazlitt 

The Essay, as might be supposed, was strongly influenced 
by the increasing individualism of the time. First, a grave 
dissertation, it had grown to be, as we have seen, a light and 
graceful discourse on some subject, in itself perhaps trivial, 
but always with an ethical basis, so that the reader might be 
improved or instructed. This ethical basis was now consid- 
ered inessential; nor was there anv more following of 
approved models. The essayist presumed that what pleased 
and interested him would, if he could express it vivaciously, 
please and interest his readers. Hence many of the best 
essays of this time are mere delightful caprices — playful dal- 
liance with thought and fancies as they rise in the writer's 
mind. When we have read them, we feel, not that we have 
been lectured, but that we have been enjoying the pleasant 
talk of a man of taste, feeling, fancy, and culture. Each 
attempted to give his writings the impress of his own pecu- 
liar mind, even to its humors, whims, and crotchets, fre- 
quently taking by preference some slight and insignificant 
subject, such as An Indian Juggler, Old China, or Eoast Pig, 
to give a greater air of familiarity and personality to the 
composition. The essayist was as anxious as Bottom, the 
weaver, to assure us that he was no lion, but altogether one 
of ourselves; and he even gives us an insight into his per- 
sonal foibles that we may be assured he claims no superiority, 
and mav feel entirely at our ease with him. 



CHABLES LAMB. 347 

The greatest master of this form of the essay was Chakles 
Lamb. He was born in London in the year 1775. His 
parents were in humble station, but appreciated the advan- 
tages of education, and procured for their son admission to 
the excellent public-school of Christ's Hospital, where his 
love of learning won him the regard of his teachers, and the 
sweetness of his disposition the affection of his school-fel- 
lows. Among these were Coleridge, with whom he formed 
a life-long friendship. 

Being intended by his parents for commercial business, on 
leaving the public-school, he did not go to the university, 
but took a position as clerk in the South Sea House, which 
he exchanged in a year or two for that of an accountant in 
the East India Company. Here he remained until 1825, 
when he retired on a pension. The delight with which lie 
hailed this emancipation from an uncongenial pursuit, 
whose duties, however, he had faithfully performed for 
thirty-three years, is charmingly expressed in his essay, The 
Superannuated Man. 

In the year 1792 a terrible calamity befel his family. His 
sister, Mary Lamb, a lady of the most estimable and amia- 
ble nature, was suddenly seized with insanity, and in the 
paroxysm grasped a knife and stabbed her mother to the 
heart. This event affected the whole life of Lamb. He 
renounced all thought of marrying, and deyoted his life to 
his beloved sister, from whom he never separated, and who 
survived him. Happily, in Mary Lamb's case, the returns 
of her malady were infrequent, and always accompanied by 
premonitory symptoms, so that due precautions could be 
taken ; and she was as dearly cherished by their friends as 
was Lamb himself, whom she resembled both in tastes and 
dispositions. 

Lamb was one of the most genial, kindly, and social of 
human creatures, and his house was a fayorite resort of many 



348 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE ESSAYISTS. 

distinguished men of the time, who have nearly all recorded 
their affection for him and delight in his society. He died 
1834, 

Lamb's works are Mr. H., a farce (which was brought out 
in 1806 and failed), the Essays of Elm, and other Essays, 
Rosamund Gray, a story, John Woodvil, a tragedy, Tales from 
Shakespeare (a joint production of himself and his sister), 
and a number of occasional poems. 

For graceful sportiyeness, quaint humor, sudden flashes 
of unpremeditated wit, tenderness of feeling, and vivacious 
fancy, Lamb has never been excelled — perhaps never equalled. 
There is no writer whom one knows so well; who tells you 
his thoughts with such an air of personal friendship and 
confidence; who seizes upon the humorous features of a 
pathetic, and the pathetic features of a humorous, subject, 
with such ready sympathy, and whose laughter and tears lie 
so close together. Sterne had this gift ; but Sterne's senti- 
ment is studied and hollow; Lamb's, spontaneous and 
genuine. Sterne's mind was morbidly gross, while Lamb 
has the instinctive unconscious purity of a child. 

In style, Lamb is confessedly a master. His familiarity 
with the literature of the Elizabethan age has given him 
something of their plasticity of language, and furnished 
him with many quaintnesses of phrase and construction 
which admirably second the natural quaintness of his 
thought. Few writers have carried the delicacy of style to 
such perfection: the exact choice of words, the exact 
arrangement, which perfectly convey, not merely the 
thought, but the feeling which underlies the thought. 
There is scarcely a sentence in Lamb's essays which, if 
altered, would not be felt to have been robbed of some of its 
beauty or delicate effect. 

Our selection is taken from A Complaint of the Decay of 
Beggars : 



CHARLES LAMB. 349 

M No one properly contemns a Beggar. Poverty is a comparative 
thing, and each degree of it is mocked by its 4 neighbor grice.' Its 
poor rents and comings-in are soon summed up and told. Its pre- 
tences to property are almost ludicrous. Its pitiful attempts to save 
excite a smile. Every scornful companion can weigh his trifle-bigger 
purse against it. Poor man reproaches poor man in the street with 
impolitic mention of his condition, his own being a shade better; 
while the rich pass by and jeer at both. No rascally comparative 
insults a Beggar, or thinks of weighing purses with him. He is not 
in the scale of comparison. He is not under the measure of property. 
He confessedly hath none any more than a clog or a sheep. No one 
twitteth him with ostentation above his means. No one accuseth him 
of pride, or upbraideth him with mock humility. None jostle with 
him for the wall, or pick quarrels for precedency. No wealthy 
neighbor seeketh to eject him from his tenement. No man sues him. 
No man goes to law with him. If I were not the independent gentle- 
man that I am, rather than I would be a retainer to the great, a led 
captain, or a poor relation, I would choose, out of the delicacy and 
true greatness of my mind, to be a Beggar. 

41 Hags, which are the reproach of poverty, are the Beggar's robes, 
and graceful insignia of his profession ; his tenure, his full dress, the 
suit in which he is expected to show himself to the public. He is 
never out of the fashion, or limpeth awkwardly behind it. He is not 
required to put on Court mourning. He weareth all colors, fearing 
none. His costume has undergone less change than the Quaker's. He 
is the only man in the universe who is not obliged to study appear- 
ances. The ups and downs of the world concern him no longer. He 
alone continueth in one stay. He is not expected to become bail or 
surety for any one. No man troubleth him with questioning his re- 
ligion or politics. He is the only free man in the universe 

" These dim eyes have in vain explored for some months past a well- 
known figure, or part of the figure of a man, who used to glide his 
comely upper half over the pavements of London, whirling along with 
most ingenious celerity upon a machine of wood ; a spectacle to na- 
tives, to foreigners, and to children. He was of a robust make, with a 
florid, sailor-like complexion, and his head was bare to the storm and 
sunshine. He was a natural curiosity ; a speculation to the scientific, 
a prodigy to the simple. The infant would stare at the mighty man 
brought down to his own level. The common cripple would despise . 
his own pusillanimity, viewing the hale stoutness, and hearty heart, of 
this half-limbed giant. He seemed earth-born, an Antaeus, and to suck 
in fresh vigor from the soil which he neighbored. He was a grand 
fragment : as good as an Elgin marble. The nature which should 



» 



350 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE ESS A YISTS. 

have recruited his reft legs and thighs was not lost, but only retired 
into his upper parts, and lie was half a- Hercules. I heard a tre- 
mendous voice thundering and growling, as before an earthquake, and 
casting down my eyes, it was this mandrake reviling a steed that had 
started at his portentous appearance. He seemed to want but his just 
stature to have rent the offending quadruped in shivers. ..... 

" Was a daily spectacle like this to be deemed a nuisance which 
called for legal interference to remove ? or not rather a salutary and 
a touching object to the passers-by in a great city ? among her shows, 
her museums, and supplies for ever-gaping curiosity (and what else but 
an accumulation of sights — endless sights — is a great city; or for what 
else is it desirable ?) was there not room for one lusus (not naturm 
indeed, but) accidentium f What if in forty-and-two years' going about, 
the man had scraped together enough to give a portion to his child 
(as the rumor ran) of a few hundreds ? Whom had he injured ? — whom 
had he imposed upon ? The contributors had enjoyed their sight for 
their pennies. What if after being exposed all day to the heats, the 
rains, and the frosts of heaven — shuffling his ungainly trunk along in 
an elaborate and painful motion — he was enabled to retire at night to 
enjoy himself at a club of his fellow-cripples over a dish of hot meat 
and vegetables, as the charge was gravely brought against him by a 
clergyman, — was this, or was his truly paternal consideration, which 
(if a fact) deserved a statue rather than a whipping-post, and is in- 
consistent, at least, with the exaggeration of nocturnal orgies which 
he has been slandered with — a reason that he should be deprived of his 
chosen, harmless, nay, edifying, way of life, and be committed in 
hoary age for a sturdy vagabond ? 

"Half of these stories about the prodigious fortunes made by beg- 
ging, are, I really believe, misers' calumnies. One was much talked 
of in the public papers some time since, and the usual charitable infer- 
ences deduced. A clerk in the Bank was surprised with the announce- 
ment of a five-hundred-pound legacy left him by a person whose name 
he was a stranger to. It seems that in his daily morning walks to his 
office, it had been his practice for the last twenty years to drop his 
halfpenny duly into the hat of some blind Bartimeus that sat beggiug 
alone by the way-side. The good old beggar recognised his daily 
beuefactor by the voice only ; and when he died left all the amass- 
ings of his alms (that had been half a century perhaps in the accumu- 
lating) to his old Bank friend. Was this a story to purse up peoples' 
hearts and pennies against giving alms to the blind ? — or not rather a 
beautiful moral of well-directed charity on the one part, and noble grat- 
itude on the other ? 

" I sometimes wish I had been that Bank clerk. 



HAZLITT. 351 

"I seem to remember a poor old grateful kind of creature, blinking, 
and looking up with his no eyes in the sun — 

"Is it possible I could have steeled my purse against him? 

" Perhaps I had no small change. 

M Reader, do not be frightened at the hard words imposition, impos- 
ture ; give, and ask no questions. Cast thy bread upon the waters. 
Some have unawares (like this Bank clerk) entertained angels. 

" Shut not thy purse-strings always against painted distress. Act 
a charity sometimes. "When a poor creature (outwardly and visibly 
such) comes before thee, do not stay to inquire whether the ' seven 
small children' in whose name he implores thy assistance, have a 
veritable existence. Rake not into the bowels of unwelcome truth to 
save a halfpenny. It is good to believe him. If he be not all that he 
pretendeth, give, and under a personate father of a family, think (if 
thou pleasest) that thou hast relieved an indigent bachelor. When 
they come with their counterfeit looks, and mumping tones, think 
them players. You pay } T our money to see a comedian feign those 
tilings, which, concerning these poor people, thou canst not cer- 
tainly tell whether they are feigned or not." 

William Hazlitt was one of the men of letters of this 
period upon whom the French Revolution had the deepest 
and most permanent influence. When the hopes of other 
enthusiasts had been dashed by the conversion of the Repub- 
lic into an Empire. Hazlitt saw in Napoleon the sovereign 
who was to fulfil all their golden dreams, and clung to this 
belief with an ardor that almost became a personal affection. 

He had a strong passion for the fine arts, but without pro- 
ductive genius ; and spent many years in painting, before he 
was sorrowfully convinced that he had not the artist's gift. 
His chief literary productions are his essays, which are char- 
acterised by refined taste, correct judgment, much learning, 
and a thorough familiarity with the best writers. His criti- 
cisms are acute, profound, and sympathetic, and distinguished 
generally for their fairness and absolute love of truth. 

It must be admitted, however, that his strong political 
feelings sometimes warped his judgment of his contem- 
poraries. He cannot separate the artist from the citizen; 



352 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE ESSAYISTS. 

and half liis pleasure in the poetry of Scott, Moore, or 
Southey, is destroyed by his perpetual consciousness of their 
Toryism. 

The great defect in his writings is the want of imagination, 
so that while they instruct, please, or convince the reader, 
they rarely lay hold upon his feelings. He, as well as Lamb, 
did a great service to English Literature by recalling atten- 
tion to the beauties of the older writers, especially those of 
the Elizabethan age, who had fallen into undeserved neglect 
by the popular notice being engrossed by the brighter lustre 
of Shakespeare. Lamb, by his Specimens of the Early 
Dramatic Poets, and Hazlitt by his Essays and Lectures on 
the Age of Elizabeth, showed what a rich mine of poetry lay 
almost unexplored. 

A certain melancholy tone runs through nearly all Hazlitt's 
writings. Convinced at last that he could never achieve 
success in the art to which he was passionately devoted, he 
could not transfer his enthusiasm or his ambition to litera- 
ture. The causes to which he was devoted were unpopular, 
the hero of his idolatry was overthrown, and what he had to 
say fell, for the most part, upon unfriendly or contemptuous 
ears. K"ot sustained by the inward consciousness of genius, 
he seems to have felt that his life was a failure, and all his 
endeavors wasted. 

This tone of melancholy is very conspicuous in the follow- 
ing passage, which closes his Lectures on the Age of Elizabeth, 
a passage which conveys a very good idea of his style: 

"I have done; and if I have done no better, the fault has been in 
me, not in the subject. My liking to this grew with my knowledge of 
it; but so did my anxiety to do it justice. I somehow felt it a point 
of honor, not to make my hearers think less highly of some of these 
old writers than I myself did of them. If I have praised an author, it 
was because I liked him : if I have quoted a passage, it was because it 
pleased me in the reading : if I have spoken contemptuously of any 
one, it has been reluctantly. It is no easy task that a writer, even in 



BE QUINCEY. 353 

so humble a class as myself, takes upon him : he is scouted and ridi- 
culed if he fails, and if he succeeds, the enmity and cavils and malice 
with which he is assailed, are in just proportion to his success. The 
coldness and jealousy of his friends not unfrequently keep pace with 
the rancor of his enemies. They do not like you a bit the better for 
fulfilling the good opinion they always entertained of you. They 
would wish you to be always promising a great deal and doing nothing, 
that they may answer for the performance. That shows their sagacity, 
and does not hurt their vanity. An author wastes his time in painful 
study and obscure researches to gain a little breath of popularity, 
meets with nothing but vexation and disappointments, in ninety -nine 
instances out of a hundred ; or when he thinks to grasp the luckless 
prize, finds it not worth the trouble — the perfume of a minute, fleeting 
as a shadow, hollow as a sound : ' as often got without merit as lost 
without deserving.' He thinks that the attainment of acknowledged 
excellence will secure him the expression of those feelings in others, 
which the image and hope of it had excited in his own breast ; but 
instead of that he meets with nothing (or scarcely nothing) but squint- 
eyed suspicion, idiot wonder, and grinning scorn. It seems hardly 
worth while to have taken all the pains he has been at, for this ! 

" In youth we borrow patience from our future years : the spring of 
hope gives us courage to act and suffer. A cloud is upon our onward 
path, and we fancy that all is sunshine beyond it. The prospect seems 
endless, because we do not know the end of it. We think that life is 
long, because art is so, and that, because we have much to do, it is well 
worth doing : or that no exertions can be too great, no sacrifices too 
painful, to overcome the difficulties we have to encounter. Life is a 
continued struggle to be what we are not, and to do what we cannot. 
But as we approach the goal, we draw in the reins ; the impulse is 
less as we have not so far to go ; as we see objects nearer, we become 
less sanguine in the pursuit : it is not the despair of not attaining, so 
much as knowing that there is nothing worth obtaining, and the fear 
of having nothing left, even to wish for, that damps our ardor and 
relaxes our efforts ; and if the mechanical habit did not increase the 
facility, would, I believe, take away all inclination or power to do any- 
thing. We stagger on the few remaining paces to the end of our 
journey ; make, perhaps, one final effort, and are glad when our task 
is done ! " 



Thomas de Quincey was born near Manchester in 1786. 
After receiving the public-school education at Eton, he was 
sent to Oxford, where he remained some years, but ran away 



354 THE NINETEENTH CENTUM F. THE ESS A YISTS. 

and went to London, where for a while he lived a strange 
vagabond life, of which he has given a curious account in 
his Autobiography. Early in life he became addicted to the 
use of opium, which habit he carried to great excess, con- 
suming prodigious quantities of the drug, with the most 
terrible results to both mind and body, which he has de- 
scribed with amazing vividness and power in his Confessions 
of an Opium-Eater, published in 1821. After years of suf- 
fering he succeeded to a great extent, but never entirely, in 
freeing himself from the pernicious habit. 

De Quincey was a brilliant scholar, an acute critic, and a 
most fascinating essayist. He has, however, left no great 
and connected work; perhaps, as in the case of Coleridge, 
the effects of the opium habit were unfavorable to continu- 
ous patient labor in a given direction. His largest work, the 
Confessions, is but a series of pictures, succeeding one 
another like the scenes in a phantasmagoria. His greatest 
strength lay in imaginative description, in which, for vivid- 
ness, gorgeousness of coloring, and scenic effect, he has 
scarcely been surpassed. His style is well suited to his sub- 
jects, being rich, harmonious, and imposing, reminding one, 
by its long, majestic periods and swelling grandeur, of the 
great prose-writers of the seventeenth century. About all 
his writings, however, there lurks a tone of unreality, as if 
he did not quite mean all that he says, or were rather play- 
ing upon his reader's imagination and feelings, as upon an 
instrument, for the mere pleasure he takes in his own con- 
summate skill. Hence, while we admire his genius, and are 
often carried away by his imagination, we rarely find him 
touch our heart or convince our judgment. He died in 
Edinburgh in 1S59. 

A good example of his descriptive powers is given in the 
following extract from the conclusion of his account of The 
Flight of a Tartar Tribe: 



BE QUINCEY. 355 

"On a fine morniug in the early autumn of the year 1771, Kien 
Lung, the Emperor of China, was pursuing his amusements in a wild 
frontier district lying on the outside of the Great Wall. For many 
hundred square leagues the country was desolate of inhahitants, but 
rich in woods of ancient growth, and overrun with game of every de- 
scription. In a central spot of this solitary region the Emperor had 
built a gorgeous hunting-lodge, to which he resorted annually for 
recreation from the cares of government. Led onwards in pursuit of 
game, he had rambled to a distance of two hundred miles or more 
from this lodge, followed at a little distance by a sufficient military 
escort, and every night pitching his tent in a different situation, until 
at length he had arrived on the very margin of the vast central desert 
of Asia. Here he was standing by accident at an opening of his pa- 
vilion, enjoying the morning sunshine, when suddenly, to the west- 
ward, there arose a vast cloudy vapor, which by degrees expanded, 
mounted, and seemed to be slowly diffusing itself over the whole face 
of the heavens. By and by this vast sheet of mist began to thicken 
towards the horizon, and to roll forward in billowy volumes. The 
Emperor's suite were assembled from all quarters. The silver trum- 
pets were sounded in the rear, and from all the glades and forest 
avenues began to trot forward towards the pavilion, the yagers, half 
cavalry, half huntsmen, who composed the imperial escort. Conjecture 
was on the stretch to divine the cause of this phenomenon, and the 
interest continually increased in proportion as simple curiosity gradu- 
ally deepened into the anxiety of uncertain danger. At first' it had 
been imagined that some vast troops of deer or other wild animals of 
the chase had been disturbed in their forest haunts by the Emperor's 
movements, or possibly by wild beasts prowling for prey, and might 
be fetching a compass by way of re-entering the forest grounds at some 
remoter points secure from molestation. But this conjecture was dis- 
sipated by the slow increase of the cloud, and the steadiness of its 
motion. In the course of two hours the vast phenomenon had ad- 
vanced to a point which was judged to be within five miles of the 
spectators, though all calculations of distance were difficult, and often 
fallacious when applied to the endless expanses of the Tartar deserts. 
Through the next hour, during which the morning breeze had a little 
freshened, the dusty vapor had developed itself far and wide into the 
appearance of huge aerial draperies, hanging in mighty volumes from 
the sky to the earth ; and at particular points, where the eddies of the 
breeze acted upon the pendulous skirts of these aerial curtains, rents 
were perceived, sometimes taking the form of regular arches, portals, 
and windows, through which began dimly to gleam the heads of 
camels ' indorsed ' with human beings, — and at intervals the moving 



356 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE ESS A YISTS. 

of men and horses in tumultuous array — and then through other open- 
ings or vistas at far distant points the flashing of polished arms. ' But 
sometimes, as the wind slackened or died away, all these opeuings, of 
whatever form, in the cloudy pall would slowly close, and for a time 
the whole pageant was shut up from view ; although the growing din, 
the clamors, shrieks, and groans ascending from infuriated myriads, 
reported, in a language not to be misunderstood, what was going on 

behind the cloudy screen 

" The lake of Tengis, near the dreadful desert of Kobi, lay in a hol- 
low amongst hills of a moderate height, ranging generally from two 
to three thousand feet high. About eleven o'clock in the forenoon, 
the Chinese cavalry reached the summit of a road which led through 
a cradle-like clip in the mountains right down upon the margin of the 
lake. From this pass, elevated about two thousand feet above the 
level of the water, they continued to descend, by a very winding and 
difficult road, for an hour and a half; and during the whole of this 
descent they were compelled to be inactive spectators of the fiendish 
spectacle below. The Kalmucks, reduced by this time from about six 
hundred thousand souls to two hundred and sixty thousand, and after 
enduring for so long a time the miseries I have previously described — 
outrageous heat, famine, and the destroying scimitar of the Kirghises 
and the Bashkirs — had for the last ten days been traversing a hideous 
desert, where no vestiges were seen of vegetation, and no drop of 
water could be found. Camels and men were already so overladen 
that it was -a mere impossibility that they should carry a tolerable 
sufficiency for the passage of this frightful wilderness. On the eighth 
day the wretched daily allowance, which had been continually dimin- 
ishing, failed entirely ; and thus, for two days of insupportable fatigue, 
the horrors of thirst had been carried to the fiercest extremity. Upon 
this last morning, at the sight of the hills and the forest scenery, which 
announced to those who acted as guides the neighborhood of the lake 
of Tengis, all the people rushed with maddening eagerness to the an- 
ticipated solace. The day grew hotter and hotter, the people more 
and more exhausted, and gradually, in the general rush forward to the 
lake, all discipline and command were lost — all attempts to preserve a 
rear-guard were neglected — the wild Bashkirs rode in among the en- 
cumbered people and slaughtered them by wholesale, and almost 
without resistance. Screams and tumultuous shouts proclaimed the 
progress of the massacre ; but none heeded, none halted ; all alike, 
pauper or noble, continued to rush on with maniacal haste to the 
waters,— all with faces blackened by the heat preying upon the liver, 
and with tongue drooping from the mouth. The cruel Bashkir was 
affected by the same misery, and manifested the same symptoms of his 



BE QUINCE T. 357 

misery as the wretched Kalmuck ; the murderer was oftentimes in the 
same frantic agony as his murdered victim — many, indeed (an ordi- 
nary effect of thirst) in both nations had become lunatic, and in this 
state, while mere multitude and condensation of bodies alone opposed 
any check to the destroying scimitar and the trampling hoof, the lake 
was reached ; and into that the whole vast body of enemies together 
rushed, and together continued to rush, forgetful of all things at that 
moment but of one almighty instinct. The absorption of the thoughts 
in one maddening appetite lasted for a single half-hour; but in the 
next arose the final scene of parting vengeance. Far and wide the 
waters of the solitary lake were instantly dyed red with blood and 
gore ; here rode a party of savage Bashkirs, hewing off heads as fast 
as the swaths fall before the mower's scythe; there stood unarmed 
Kalmucks in a death-grapple with their detested foes, both up to the 
middle in water, and oftentimes both sinking together below the sur- 
face, from weakness or from struggles, and perishing in each other's 
arms. Did the Bashkirs at any point collect into a cluster for the 
sake of giving impetus to the assault ? Thither were the camels driven 
in fiercely by those who rode them, generally women or boys ; and 
even these quiet creatures were forced into a share in this carnival of 
murder, by trampling down as many as they could strike prostrate 
with the lash of their fore-legs. Every moment the water grew more 
polluted ; and yet every moment fresh myriads came up to the lake 
and rushed in, not able to resist their frantic thirst, and swallowing 
large draughts of water visibly contaminated with the blood of their 
slaughtered compatriots. Wheresoever the lake was shallow enough 
to allow of men raising their heads above the water, there, for scores 
of acres, were to be seen all forms of ghastly fear, of agonizing strug- 
gle, of spasm, of death, and the fear of death — revenge, and the lunacy 
of revenge — until the neutral spectators, of whom there were not a 
few, now descending from the eastern side of the lake, at length averted 
their e} T es in horror. This horror, which seemed incapable of further 
addition, was, however, increased by an unexpected incident: the 
Bashkirs, beginning to perceive here and there the approach of the 
Chinese cavalry, felt it prudent — wheresoever they were sufficiently at 
leisure from the passions of the murderous scene — to gather into 
bodies. This was noticed by the governor of a small Chinese fort 
built upon an eminence above the lake ; and immediately he threw in 
a broadside which spread havoc among the whole Bashkir tribe. As 
often as the Bashkirs collected into * globes' 1 and 'turms,' as their only 
means of meeting the long lines of descending Chinese cavalry — so 
often did the Chinese governor of the fort pour in his exterminating 
broadside; until at length the lake, at its lower end, became one vast 



358 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE ESSA TISTS. 

seething cauldron of human bloodshed and carnage. The Chinese 
cavalry had reached the foot of the hills; the Bashkirs, attentive to 
their movements, had formed; skirmishes had been fought; and with 
a quick sense that the contest was hencefor wards rapidly becoming 
hopeless, the Bashkirs and Kirghises began to retire. 

" The pursuit was not as vigorous as the Kalmuck hatred would 
have desired. Bat, at the same time, the very gloomiest hatred could 
not but find, in their own dreadful experience of the Asiatic deserts, 
and in the certainty that these wretched Bashkirs had to repeat that 
same experience a second time for thousands of miles, as the price 
exacted by a retributary Providence for their vindictive cruelty — not 
the very gloomiest of the Kalmucks, or the least reflecting, but found 
in all this a retaliatory chastisement more complete and absolute than 
any which their swords and lances could have obtained, or human 
vengeance have devised." 

About this time a new field was opened to the Essay in 
the great Reviews. The first English periodical bearing this 
name was the Monthly Revieiv, established in 1749. Jfc was 
conducted with great ability, and existed until 1844. Its 
principles were those of the Whigs and Dissenters, and to 
counteract its influence, the Tory party founded the Critical 
Review, of which Smollett and Johnson were the most impor- 
tant contributors. 

In 1802 the Edinburgh Revieto was established by two 
young barristers, Francis Jeffrey, and Henry (afterwards 
Lord) Brougham, with the cooperation of the Rev. Sydney 
Smith. Jeffrey was the editor, and largest contributor, and 
under his management, which lasted until 1829, it became the 
highest authority in literary criticism, and a potent instru- 
ment in politics. Its principles, in the latter, were Whig ; 
but many writers of the opposite party, Sir Walter Scott 
among the rest, were among its earlier contributors. The 
principal names among these were Sir James Mackintosh, 
the legist and philosopher ; the Rev. Thomas Robert Mal- 
thus, the political economist; Playfair, the mathematician, 
and Thomas Babington Macaulay, afterwards Lord Mac- 
aulay, the critic, statesman, and historian. 



THE BEYIEWS. 359 

Feeling the need of a similar organ for the Tory party, 
Sir Walter Scott suggested the establishment of an antago- 
nist journal in London; and in 1809 the Quarterly Review 
was founded, under the editorship of William Gifpord, the 
translator of Juvenal, and author of the satiric poem Tlie 
Baviad and Mmviad, directed against the poetasters and 
scribblers of the day. Gilford remained the editor until 1824, 
when he was succeeded by Johx G. Lockhart, the son-in- 
law of Sir Walter Scott, a polished essayist and graceful poet. 
Among the principal contributors were Scott ; George 
Caxxixg, poet, wit, and statesman ; the poet Southey, and 
Hookham Frere, wit, poet, and critic. 

In 1825 the Westminster Review was established as the 
representative of the peculiar political and economical views 
of Jeremy Bextham, and others of what was called the 
(i utilitarian school," and became the organ of the Eadical 
party. 

Of the two great Eeviews at the time of which we are 
speaking, the Edinburgh was conducted in the fairer spirit, 
and with the greater vivacity and good temper. Jeffrey, as 
well as Gifford, was a partisan, but he was free from Gifford's 
narrow-mindedness, bitterness, and small pedantries. Both, 
however, as authorities in literary matters, were vitiated (as 
are the English Eeviews of the present day to a less degree) 
by the element of politics. A literary journal should have 
no side in parties or politics, and confine itself to questions 
of art alone, or of art and morality. In these Eeviews we 
constantly see that the critic is dealing with a friend or an 
enemy ; and when he tries to be fairest, we perceive that he 
is reluctantly censuring an ally, or generously praising an 
antagonist, and, in either case, claiming our admiration for 
his magnanimity. 

The criticism, too, in these journals, although often acute, 
learned, witty, elegant, and judicious, was not of the highest 



3 •;: THE XIXETEEXTH CEXTUB F. THE ESS A YISTS. 

class. The critics were too much disposed to refer everything 

to their own peculiar standard, and prai ; 
ingly. They looked upon their oinoe not as s:: . _wz 

as judicial. A book, drama, or poem was a thing to be praised 
or blamed, not a phenomenon to be investigated. The all- 
important questions with them were: Is this work re^ 
tionary or conservative ? Are its religious sentiments orthodox 
or liberal? Is its morality pure or loose ? True, these were 
p:»ints on which the public had a right to be informed: but 
the really important questions were: "What is the character 
of the mind that produced this book; what circumstances 
have called it forth and given it this form and coloring : 
what tendencies in the world of thought does it indicate, and 
what results is it likely to have? It was the want of this 
scientific spirit — -it was the habit of referring things to a stand- 
ard of what they ought to be. instead of trying to discover 
what and why they are. that has rendered so much of the 
brilliant talent of that period utterly valueless and waste. 
And to this day we may see critics of no small powers, con- 
temning novel-writing because they have themselves no 
liking for fiction, or sneering at metaphysics because they have 
no taste for speculative philosophy: not seeing that a branch 
of art which delights millions, or studies which have absorbed 
the profoundest intellects of the age. are facts of momentous 
importance, beside which our personal tastes sink into insig- 
nificance. 

The Eeview literature, however, was by no means confined 
to criticism. Though the articles kept the form of reviews. 
they Were frequently able and thoroughly original essays 
upon the subject treated of in the work or works mentioned 
in the rubric: and some of the most delightful and in- 
structive contributions to literature have appeared in this 
form. 

Xo notice, however brief, of English Eeview literature, can 



JOHN WILSON: 361 

omit some reference to the chief and patriarch of all maga- 
zine-writers, the famous "Christopher North." 

Johx Wilsox was born in Paisley, Scotland, in 1785. 
After learning the rudiments at a good local school, he was 
sent to Glasgow College, which he left, in 1803, for Oxford 
University. Here he gained a twofold reputation, both for 
his love for letters and his intellectual powers, and also for 
his gayety of temperament, sociability, and extraordinary 
proficiency in all athletic exercises, for which his unusual 
strength and activity especially qualified him. In 1807 he 
passed a brilliant examination for his Bachelor's degree, after 
which he left the University and fixed his residence on the 
margin of Lake Winander, in Westmoreland, near the homes 
of Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Southey. 

The sudden loss of his fortune compelled him to seek a 
profession, and he removed to Edinburgh, where he prepared 
himself for the Bar. He was admitted to practice in 1815, 
but entered with no zeal into the legal calling, his sympathies 
impelling him to a literary career, and his chief friends being 
men of letters. He published two poems, of considerable 
length, The Isle of Palms, and a dramatic poem called The 
City of the Plague (founded upon the great epidemic which 
ravaged London in 1665), besides various review and magazine 
papers, and other shorter pieces, which attracted attention. 

About this time- the Tory party thought it expedient to 
establish a literary organ in the north to counteract the in- 
fluence of the Edinburgh Review ; and in 1817 Blackivood's 
Edinburgh Magazine was started, with Wilson and Johx 
Gibsox Lockhart as the principal contributors, and a staff 
of other distinguished writers. The first appearance of this 
magazine created great excitement in the literary and politi- 
cal world; an excitement intentionally heightened by the 
device of shrouding the personality of contributors and 
editor in a veil of mystery. The articles were in the highest 

16 



362 THE NINETEENTH CENTUBY. THE ESSAYISTS. 

degree brilliant and effective ; but they were unscrupulous, 
bitterly partisan, offensively personal, and often calumnious 
and false. The critics of Blackwood cared far less for truth 
and justice than they did for excitement and victory ; and 
they did not shrink from vituperation, slander, and discred- 
itable mystification. A narrow spirit of clique pervaded the 
set ; and they not only held themselves bound to praise each 
other, but (as the correspondence shows) were restrained by 
no delicacy from requesting from each other laudatory no- 
tices of their respective works, the author himself suggesting 
the mode in which his work and his genius might be most 
effectively eulogised. 

The success of the new journal was very great, and the 
influence it obtained and the terror it inspired immense; but 
it inflicted unjust and irreparable pain and injury on many, 
it wrought evil of which no one could see the extent or the 
end, and it lowered the standard of honor, of gentlemanly 
feeling, and of true culture, as far as its influence reached. 
Considering the abilities, learning, and genius of the men, 
and the power they might have exercised purely for good, 
there are few episodes in English literature less creditable 
than the establishment of Blackwood's Magazine, the only 
excuse for which is, that though it was the chief offender, 
none of its contemporaries were free from the same faults. 

After some years, it began to amend its ways, and its 
writers to rise to a truer sense of the duties of their calling. 
To some limited extent, amends were made for previous in- 
justice, and a spirit of greater fairness pervaded the maga- 
zine, though it never freed itself from partisan bias. 

Among the chief contributors to Blackwood in its earlier 
years were Sir William Hamilton, the philosopher, Dr. Moir 
("Delta"), the poet, Sir Archibald Alison, the historian. Sir 
David Brewster, the distinguished physicist, Dr. William 
Maginn, wit and satirist, Hogg (the "Ettrick Shepherd"), 



JOHN WILSON. 363 

poet, Thomas De Quincey, and Sir "Walter Scott, of whom we 
speak elsewhere. Wilson, after a time, took the name of 
" Christopher North " (an imaginary personage assuming to 
be the editor), and was from the first the largest contributor 
and ruling spirit, though not, as commonly supposed, the 
editor. He brought to his work the extraordinary vivacity 
and animal spirits which were characteristic of the man, as 
well as wit, a warm imagination, and rich, copious, and 
powerful expression ; and these qualities combined have 
stamped his papers with individualism of a peculiar and 
attractive sort. The series of imaginary conversations be- 
tween "North," "the Shepherd," "Tickler/' and other per- 
sonages, which bears the title of NocUs Ambrosiance, is 
perhaps unparalleled for its combination of wit, poetry, 
character, glowing description, sparkling bits of criticism, 
and exuberant fuu. Wilson's connection with the magazine 
continued, with but short interruption, until his strength 
and intellectual powers failed him in 1852. 

In 1820 he was elected to the Chair of Moral Philosophy 
in the University of Edinburgh, a position which he held 
until 1851. He died in 1854 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

The Novelists. Scott— Etckf. axt— 3Irs. Radcliffc— Miss Edgewortli— 

Miss Mitturd. 

The writer who claims the first place among novelists of 
this period, is one- who is also justly entitled to a station 
among the most distinguished poets; but while, with all 
his poetic genius, he was surpassed by several of his contem- 
poraries in the highest qualities of poetry, in the field of 
narrative fiction he stood not merely eminent, but absolutely 
without a rival, nor has he been since excelled even by those 
who have had the advantage of having his works before 
them as a model. 

Walter Scott, the descendant of a family belonging to 
one of the bravest and most adventurous of Scottish clans, 
was born in Edinburgh in IT Tl. Although, like Byron, he 
had the misfortune to be lame, that infirrnitv seems never to 
have been much regarded by him. and. being possessed of a 
very vigorous constitution, he was somewhat distinguished 
in youth both for strength and activity, "having often 
walked thirty miles a day. and rode upwards of a hundred 
without resting.'' 

At one period of his boyhood, however, he had the misfor- 
tune to break a blood-vessel, which gave serious apprehen- 
sions for his health. For several weeks after this accident 
he was forbidden to converse or exert himself in any way, 
and his sole amusement consisted in devouring the contents 



GERMAN LITERATURE. 365 

of a large circulating library, particularly rich in legends, 
romances, and tales of chivalry. The taste for reading of 
this sort never afterwards left him; and he thus, at a very 
early period, had amassed a great stock of materials, and 
acquired much antiquarian knowledge. 

From early youth Scott had been an enthusiastic student 
of the ballad literature of his country, but had never, as he 
tells us, attempted to imitate what had given him so much 
pleasure, and was almost unconscious of his own gifts, until 
the success of another writer in this field induced him to try 
his powers. 

In 1788 Henry Mackenzie (author of The Man of Feeling), 
in a lecture before the Eoyal Society, first introduced the 
English public to the revived German literature, and pro- 
duced a powerful impression among men of culture through- 
out the kingdom. In Edinburgh a knot of young men, of 
whom Scott was one, applied themselves with ardor to the 
study of the German language, and were soon enthusiastic 
in their admiration of the new literature. In 1795 Matthew 
Gregory Lewis published a romance of considerable power, 
called The Monk, in which he had imitated the wild melo- 
dramatic style of the German supernatural romances, and 
wiiich met with a very favorable reception. In this story 
Lewis had introduced several romantic ballads, which were 
very greatly admired ; and the perusal of these aroused in 
Scott a feeling of emulation. He felt that he had at his 
command a far greater stock of material and information 
than Lewis possessed, and determined to make the attempt 
to achieve something in the same style. 

His first essay, published in 1796, consisted of a few pieces, 
translated from the German of Burger, and was but coldly 
received by the public. He next tried his hand upon two 
original romantic ballads, which were more successful, and, 
with two or three smaller pieces, were included by Lewis in 



366 TEE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE NOVELISTS. 

a collection called Tales of Wonder, to which Sou they and 
others were contributors, and which was published in 1801. 
The book was rather roughly handled by the critics, but 
Scott's contributions were favorably spoken of. Encouraged 
by this partial success, Scott next commenced a collection of 
ballads, both ancient and modern, partly original, founded 
upon the traditions of the Border district, which was pub- 
lished, under the title Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, at 
Kelso in 1802. It was well received by the public, and from 
this time Scott considered himself seriously engaged in a 
literary career. 

His first attempt at a sustained poem of considerable 
length was the Lay of the Last Minstrel, which grew out 
of a legend which the young Countess of Dalkeith (after- 
wards Duchess of Buccleugh) requested him to make the 
subject of a ballad. It was published in 1805, and had an 
immense sale, the demand exceeding anything then known 
in the history of English poetry. 

Scott now felt that his literary career was assured, and 
continued his work with enthusiasm and untiring energy. 
Marmion followed in 1808 ; The Lady of the Lake in 1810 ; 
The Vision of Don Roderick, founded upon a Spanish tradi- 
tion, in 1811; Roheby in 1812; The Bridal of Triermain, 
published anonymously, in 1813 ; The Lord of the Isles in 
1814; The Field of Waterloo in 1815; and Harold the 
Dauntless in 1817. Besides these he produced at different 
times a number of smaller lyrical and dramatic pieces. In 
prose he also wrote a Life of Swift, Life of Napoleon Bona- 
parte, and other works, and contributed various essays to 
reviews and other periodicals. 

In 1805 he had written a few chapters of a novel founded 
on incidents in Scottish history; but the opinions of friends 
being unfavorable, he threw the manuscript aside and forgot 
it. In 1814, however, he chanced to re-discover this old 



SIB WALTER SCOTT. 367 

fragment, and determined to complete it. The popularity 
of Miss Edgeworth's Irish tales convinced him that similar 
stories of Scottish life and manners were likely to meet with 
favor; he was aware that he had on hand an ample supply of 
curious materials, accumulated during many years of study 
and research ; and he had some apprehension that the public 
might grow w T eary of his long narrative poems, especially 
after contrasting them with the works of Byron, Words- 
worth, and other poets of that time, who spoke of the 
present, not of the past, and appealed to personal rather 
than national feeling. 

The author did not, however, care to risk his great popu- 
larity by venturing in this new field openly ; and his first 
novel, Waverley, was brought out anonymously in 1814, and 
at once attained great popularity. Encouraged by this suc- 
cess, w T hich opened a new source of wealth and fame, Guy 
Manner ing and The Antiquary followed in quick succession. 
Scott's fame was now r something extraordinary. He had his 
well-won poetic honors, and in addition could take to him- 
self the praises that all the w T orld (for the novels were trans- 
lated into several European languages) were bestowing on 
" the Great Unknown/' the author of the Waverley Novels. 

Wealth, too, poured in upon him. On his estate of 
Abbotsford, which he had purchased with the intention of 
building an unpretending cottage, he erected a stately 
baronial mansion, w T here he dispensed a liberal hospitality to 
crowds of guests, and did the honors of Scotland to visitors 
from all quarters of the world. 

In addition to various civic and other honors, he was 
created a baronet in 1820; and as this title is hereditary, his 
great ambition to be the founder of a family with large 
landed estates and rank, seemed likely to be fulfilled. But 
unfortunately he had permitted himself to become a secret 
partner of his publishers — then considered a very wealthy 



368 THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE NOVELISTS. 

and substantial house — and in 1826 this firm became involved 
in difficulties which resulted in their failure and Scott's 
financial ruin. He bore himself nobly in this crisis, which 
so unexpectedly wrecked all his hopes, and set to work with 
determination to pay the debts which the yanity and fool- 
hardiness of another had brought upon him. He worked 
with almost superhuman energy, resuming at once his inter- 
rupted novel of Woodstock, and, refusing all the pecuniary 
assistance which was offered him, determined to extricate 
himself by his own labor alone. In four years he paid his 
creditors about £70,000; but his health broke down under 
the labor, and he was attacked with paralysis. A southern 
climate being recommended for him, the English Govern- 
ment placed a frigate at his disposal, in which he visited 
Naples in 1831. He returned to Scotland the following 
year, and died at Abbotsford, September 21, 1832. 

In several respects Scott was not merely the first novelist 
of his time, but altogether unsurpassed in English literature. 
In his delineation of contemporary, and especially humorous, 
characters, such as we find in the Scotch novels, in vivid, yet 
unstrained, descriptions of scenery, and in perfectly life-like 
conversations (where the personages are drawn from life), no 
novelist has excelled him, and very few have equalled. 
"When, attracted by his love of feudal pomp and pageantry, 
and by his wealth of antiquarian lore, he tried to revive the 
manners of the middle ages, he comparatively failed, not 
from deficiency of genius, but because success was impossi- 
ble. The personages in Ivanlwe, The Talisman, etc., are seen 
at once to be mere masks, or phantoms, not living flesh and 
blood. "We see a splendid show, and hear sonorous words, 
but all is hollow and theatrical. Yet for this very cause 
these novels are the most generally popular of all; the 
public generally caring more for glittering spectacles than 
for studies of life and character. 



SIB WALTER SCOTT. 3C9 

Scott's poetry rarely touches the inmost depths of the 
heart, or lifts us into an ideal world. But it is smooth, 
graceful, and melodious in the level passages, highly pictur- 
esque, often tender; and in the animated portions, such as 
his descriptions of battles and other stirring scenes, it has a 
glow and career that fairly carry us away. And as a crown- 
ing grace, all his writings are as pure, as noble, and as free 
from egotism as he was himself throughout his whole manly 
and blameless life. 

It would be quite impossible, in a work like this, to give 
extracts which would convey any idea of Scott's varied 
powers ; we therefore select a passage illustrating that char- 
acteristic in which he stands unrivalled, the delineation of 
humorous Scottish character. Our selection is the meeting 
between Bailie Nicol Jarvie and his kinsman, Eob Eoy Mac- 
gregor, in the Glasgow tolbooth, or jail : 

" The magistrate took the light out of his servant's hand and ad- 
vanced to his scrutiny. The first whom he approached was my mys- 
terious guide, who, seated on a table as I have already described him, 
with his eyes firmly fixed on the wall, his features arranged into the 
utmost inflexibility of expression, his hands folded on his breast with 
an air between carelessness and defiance, his heel patting against the 
foot of the table, to keep time with the tune which he continued to 
whistle, submitted to Mr. Jarvie's investigation with an air of absolute 
confidence and assurance which, for a moment, placed at fault the 
memory and sagacity of the acute investigator. 

u 'Ah! — Eh? — Oh!' exclaimed the Bailie. 'My conscience! — it's 
impossible ! — and yet — no ! — conscience ! — it canna be ! Deil hae me, 
that I should say sae! — Ye robber — ye cateran — ye born deevil that ye 
are, to a' bad ends and nae glide ane ! — can this be you ? ' 

" ■ E'en as ye see, Bailie/ was the laconic answer. 

" ' Conscience ! if I'm nae clean bumbazed 1 —you, ye cheat- the- 
wuddy 2 rogue — you here on your venture in the tolbooth of Glasgow ? 
— What d'ye think' s the value o' your head ? ■ 

" ' Umph ! — why, fairly weighed, and Dutch weight, it might weigh 
down one provost's, four bailies', a town-clerk's, six deacons' — ' 

1 Confounded. a Cheat-the-gallows. 
16* 



370 THE NINETEENTH CENTUR Y. THE NO VELISTS. 

"'Ah, ye reiving villain !' interrupted Mr. Jarvie. * But tell ower 
your sins, and prepare ye, for if I say the word— 

" ' True, Bailie/ said he who was thus addressed, folding his hands 
behind him with the utmost nonchalance, * but ye will never say that 
word/ 

" ' And why suld I not, sir ? ' exclaimed the magistrate — { why suld I 
not ? Answer me that — why suld I not ? * 

* ' For three different reasons, Bailie Jarvie. — First, for auld lang 
syne; — second, for the sake of the auld wife ayont the fire at Stucka- 
vrallachan, that made some mixture of our bluids, to my own proper 
shame be it spoken, that have a cousin wi' accounts, and yarn-winnles, 
and looms, and shuttles, like a mere mechanical person ; — and lastly, 
Bailie, because if I saw a sign of your betraying me, I would plaster 
that wa' with your brains ere the hand of man could rescue you ! ' 

"'Ye're a bauld desperate villain, sir,' retorted the undaunted 
Bailie ; 4 and ye ken that I ken ye to be sae, and that I wadna stand a 
moment for my ain risk/ 

u ' I ken weel,' said the other, ■ ye hae gentle bluid in your veins, and 
I wad be laith to hurt my ain kinsman. But I'll gang out of here as 
free as I came in, or the very wa's o' Glasgow tolbooth shall tell o't 
these ten years to come.' 

" c Weel, weel,' said Mr. Jarvie, * bluid's thicker than water ; and it 
liesna in kith, kin, and ally, to see motes in ilk other's een if other een 
see them no. It wad be sair news to the auld wife that you, ye Hieland 
limmer, had knackit out my brains, or that I had kilted you up in a 
tow. 3 But ye'll own, ye dour deevil, that were it no your very sell, I 
wad hae grippit the best man in the Hielands.' 

" i Ye wad hae tried, cousin/ answered the other, ■ that I wot weel ; 
but I doubt ye wad hae come aff wi' the short measure ; for we gang- 
thereout Hieland bodies are an unchancy generation when you speak 
to us o' bondage. We downa bide the coercion of gude braid-claith 
about our hinderlans, let-a-be breeks o' freestone and garters o' iron.' 

" * Ye'll find the stane breeks and the aim garters, — ay, and the hemp 
cravat, for a' that, neighbor/ replied the Bailie. ' Nae man in a civil- 
ized country ever played the pliskies* ye hae done — but e'en pickle in 
your ain pock-neuk — I hae gi'en ye warning.' 

" ' Well, cousin/ said the other, ■ ye'll wear black at my burial.' 

" * Deil a black cloak will be there, Robin, but the corbies and the 
hoodie-craws, I'se gie ye my hand on that. But whar's the gude 
thousand pund Scots that I lent ye, man, and when am I to see it 
again ? ' 

1 Rope. 2 Pranks. 



SIR WALTER SCOTT. 371 

444 Where it is,' replied nry guide, after the affectation of considering 
for a moment, 4 1 cannot justly tell — probably where last year's snaw 
is.' 

44 And that's on the top of Schehallion, ye Hieland dog,' said Mr. 
Jarvie, 4 and I look for payment frae you where ye stand.' 

" 4 Ay,' replied the Highlander, ' but I keep neither snaw nor dollars 
in my sporran. 1 And as to when you'll see it — why just when the 
king enjoys his ain again, as the auld sang says.' 

44 4 Warst of a\ Robin,' retorted the Galwegian,— 4 1 mean ye disloyal 
traitor — warst of a' ! Wad ye bring popery in on us, and arbitrary 
power ? Ye had better stick to your auld trade o' theft-boot, black- 
mail, spreaghs, and gillravaging 2 — better stealing nowte 3 than ruining 
nations.' 

"'Hout, man — whisht wi' your whiggery/ answered the Celt; 'we 
hae kenned ane anither mony a lang day. I'se take care your count- 
ing-room is no cleaned out when the Gillon-a-naillie 4 come to redd up 
the Glasgow buiths, and clear them o' their auld shop-wares. And, 
unless it just fa' in the preceese way o' your duty, ye maunna see me 
oftener, Nicol, than I am disposed to be seen.' 

4 * 4 Ye are a dauring villain, Rob,' auswered the Bailie ; ' and ye will 
be hanged, that will be seen and heard tell o' ; but I'se ne'er be the ill 
bird and foul my nest, set apart strong necessity and the skriegh 5 of 
duty, which no man should hear and be inobedient/ " 

[After some further conversation, Eob invites the hero and 
the Bailie to visit him in the glens.] 

u c I am but a poor man ; but wit's better than wealth — and, cousin, 
if ye daur venture sae muckle as to eat a dish of Scotch collops and a 
leg o' red-deer wi' me, come }^e wi' this gentleman to the Clachan of 
Aberfoil, and I'll hae somebody waiting to weise ye the gate 6 to the 
place where I may be for the time. What say ye, man ? ' 

" 4 Na, na, Robin,' replied the cautious burgher. 4 1 seldom like to 
leave the Gorbals. I have nae freedom to gang among your wild hills, 
Robin, and your kilted red-shanks — it dinna become my place, man.' 

44 • Deil take your place and you baith," exclaimed the Highlander. 
4 The only drap o' gentle bluid that's in your body was our great-grand- 
uncle's that was justified 7 at Dumbarton, and you set yourself to say ye 
wad derogate frae your place to visit me ! Hark thee, man, — I owe 
thee a day in har'st — I'll pay up your thousand pund Scots, plack and 

- 1 Purse. 2 Forays and raids. s Cattle. 4 Highlanders. * Call. 
• Show you the way. 7 Executed. 



3 72 THE NINETEENTH CENTUM Y. THE NO VELXSTS. 

bawbee, 1 gin ye'll be an honest fellow for anes, and just daiker up the 
gate 2 wi' this Sassenach.' " 

"'.Hout awa' wi 1 your gentility,' replied the Bailie; 'cany your 
gentle blood to the cross 4 and see what ye'll buy wi't. But, if I were 
to come, wad ye really and soothfastly pay me the siller J* 

" ' I swear it to you,' said the Highlander. 

" ' Say nae mair, Robin — say nae mair— we'll see what may be dune. 
.... Ye maun meet me at the Clachan of Aberfoil, — and dinna for- 
get the needful.' 

" ' Nae fear — nae fear But I must be budging, cousin, for the 

air o y Glasgow tolbooth is no that ower salutary to a Highlander's 
constitution/ 

" ' Troth/ replied the Bailie, ' and if my duty were to be dune, ye 
couldna change your atmosphere this ae wee while. — Ochon ! that I 
suld ever be concerned in aiding and abetting an escape frae justice ! 
it will be a shame and a disgrace to me and mine, and my very father's 
memory, for ever. , 

'• ' Hout tout, man ! ' answered his kinsman ' Your father, 

honest man, could look ower a friend's fault as weel as anither/ 

" ' Ye may be right, Robin,' replied the Bailie, after a moment's 
reflection 5 ' he was a considerate man, the deacon ; he kenned we had 
a' our frailties, and he lo'ed his friends.— Ye'll no hae forgotten him, 
Robin?' 

" * Forgotten him ! ' replied his kinsman — ' what suld ail me to for- 
get him ? — a wapping weaver he was, and wrought my first pair o' 
hose. But come awa', kinsman, — 

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can, 
Come saddle my horses, and call up my man ; 
Come open your gates, and let me gae free, 
I daurna stay langer in bonny Dundee/ 
Whist, sir ! ' said the magistrate, in an authoritative tone — ' lilting 
and singing sae near the latter end o' the Sabbath ! This house may 
hear ye sing anither tune yet. — A weel, we hae a' backslidings to answer 
for. — Stanchells, open the door/ 

The introduction of Oriental studies by Sir William Jones 
and others opened new fields of incident and character, very 
tempting to lively imaginations. The gorgeous coloring of 
Eastern pomp and scenery, the strangeness and wildness of 
their fanciful tales, fascinated poets and romancers, eager to 

] Sixpence and farthing. 2 Come up the road. 3 Englishman. 4 Market. 



WILLIAM BECKFOBD. 373 

escape from the prim sentimentalities of the serious, and the 
coarse vulgarities of the comic novel. Besides the respecta- 
ble Eastern poems of Southey and Moore, innumerable Per- 
sian stories, Arabian stories, etc., both in prose and verse, 
were given to the public, and were extremely popular until 
the novelty wore off. The most powerful and original of 
these, and indeed a work of remarkable genius, was The 
History of the Caliph Vathek, by Beckford. 

William Beckford was born at the family estate of 
Fonthill, in Wiltshire, in 1759. His father was a man of 
enormous wealth, who had been twice Lord Mayor of Lon- 
don. He died while his son was yet a minor, leaving him 
heir to one of the largest fortunes in England. Extraor- 
dinary care was taken in the education of young Beckford, 
who showed great aptitude for learning, and a remarkably 
lively imagination. No education of a young Englishman 
of fortune was considered complete without a tour on the 
Continent; and Beckford travelled extensively, receiving 
everywhere great attentions. Of these travels he has left 
interesting memoirs. 

The romance of Vatheh appeared in 1784, in the French 
language, in which the author originally wrote it. It is a 
w r ork of extraordinary richness and sublimity of imagination, 
far surpassing in poetical conception the somewhat cum- 
brous extravagances of Southey. In parts, the grandeur 
almost equals that of Dante ; while the language, by its 
extreme terseness and simplicity, heightens the effect. 

In 1783 Mr. Beckford was. married, and took up his resi- 
dence near Vevay, in Switzerland, until the death of his wife 
in 178G. This affliction preyed deeply upon his spirits, and 
he sought relief in renewed travel in Portugal, Spain, and 
France. While abroad, he was having built, on his paternal 
estate in Wiltshire, a mansion, or rather palace — the famed 
Fonthill Abbey — of almost fabulous magnificence. Any 



3 74 THE NINETEENTH CEXTUR T. THE XO YELISTS. 

description of it here would be impossible, but some idea of 
the size may be obtained from the statement that the general 
plan was that of a cross, the two main halls, crossing at 
right angles, being respectively two hundred and sixty and 
three hundred feet in length. Over the crossing was an 
octagonal tower two hundred and seventy-six feet high. 
The whole building was furnished with magnificence cor- 
responding with its size, and crowded with costly paintings, 
statuary, and works of art of every description. The drive 
around the grounds was about twenty miles in length. Here 
he resided until 1824, when he sold the abbey to a wealthy 
tradesman. It was afterwards used, in part at least, as a 
manufactory, and has since been destroyed by fire. 

Mr. Beckford's fortune having been somewhat impaired 
by heavy losses, he removed to Bath, where he built a resi- 
dence of extraordinary elegance, though on a far smaller 
scale than Fonthili He died in 1844 

Mrs. Axxe Eadclifiz (born 1762, died 18*23) carried 
romanticism to an extreme. Her romances are especially 
intended for the lovers of the marvellous and terrible. The 
scenes are laid, for the most part, in dark forests, or ancient 
and gloomy castles: and midnight robbers and assassins. 
mysterious crimes, awful vengeances, sudden disappearances, 
ghastly forms of spectres and apparitions, and all the appa- 
ratus of terror are used with powerful effect. The modern 
mystery-novel, the interest of which attaches to the tantalised 
and baffled curiosity of the reader, is the present representa- 
tive of this class of writing; the increased diffusion of science 
having made effects now no longer possible, that were quite 
legitimate half a century ago. 

There is no atmosphere of reality about Mrs. Eadcliffe's 
works: they lie in the dim twilight between the natural and 
the supernatural, by which the readers mind is prepared to 
surrender his judgment to his imagination. She had a fine 



MARY RUSSELL MITFORD. 375 

feeling for scenery and natural beauties; and many of her 
descriptive passages are admirable, especially where the 
charms of happy and peaceful scenes are heightened by con- 
trast with scenes of gloom or horror. She had also great 
skill in the conduct of plots of unusual intricacy. The class 
to which these works belong is an inferior one ; but they are 
among the best of the class. Her best known work is The 
Mysteries of Udolpho. Others are The Italian, The Forest, 
and Julia. 

Maria Edgeworth (bom 1770, died 1849), besides vari- 
ous works on education and stories for the young, was the 
author of several novels of great merit. Her chief works are 
Castle Rachrent and Tales of Fashionable Life. Her works 
exhibit originality of plot, fine observation, and accurate 
delineation of character and manners. 

Mary Eussell Mitford (born 1786, died 1855) an amia- 
ble and accomplished lady, was driven to writing for the 
purpose of supporting a selfish and extravagant father, to 
whom she was devotedly attached. Her writings show taste 
and feeling, with much observation of character. Her prin- 
cipal works are Poems and Our Village. 



CHAPTER XXXIL 

Contemporary Writers. Tennyson — Browning — Mrs. Browning—* 
Clough — Arnold — Morris— Jean Ingelow — Swinburne — Dickens- 
Thackeray— Charlotte Bronte — 'George Elliot' — Macaulay — Car- 
ry le—Grote — Froude — R us kin. 

Having now reached the period which includes the 
writers contemporary with the present generation, our re- 
marks must assume a somewhat different form, and be 
briefer and more guarded. Hitherto "we have endeavored, in 
our critical estimates, to give, not a personal opinion, but 
that which seemed to be the verdict of general and impartial 
criticism, sufficiently removed by time to be able to consider 
an author's works as a whole, in reference to their place in 
literature. With writers of our own day this cannot be 
done. Those who would criticise are themselves subject to 
the same influences as the writers they study, are combat- 
ants in the same conflict, and cannot help viewing these as 
allies or as adversaries. Nor are we in a position to estimate 
thoroughly the influences or tendencies of writings which are 
but of yesterday. After the applause which is lavished on a 
popular author, there invariably comes a reaction, with an 
undue tendency to depreciate; and it is not until both these 
impulses have subsided that anything like a final judgment 
can be passed. 

Of the influences especially affecting contemporary litera- 
ture, one or two are of such importance as to demand some 
preliminary notice. The first of these is the position occu- 
pied by science. 



INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE. 377 

To summarise, were it ever so briefly, the advances that 
Science has made in the present generation, would be impos- 
sible in our limited space ; but it is not too much to say that 
a few of its greatest discoveries — the electric telegraph, 
photography, ocean navigation by steam, the spectrum 
analysis (perhaps the most extraordinary in its results of 
any discovery ever made), and, in theory, the doctrine of the 
conservation of force — are of themselves enough to give a 
new form and impulse to the civilisation of an age. 

With the increased scope of science has come the necessity 
for specialisation. No man — however long his life or ardu- 
ous his study — can dream of mastering all scientific knowl- 
edge: if he hopes to achieve anything he must limit himself 
to a single branch, or perhaps a single study, and devote all 
his powers of intellect and observation to that alone. Thus 
while at the revival of learning, as we have seen, the student 
of the Trivium and Quadrivium undertook to master the 
whole domain of knowledge, now the man of science, fur- 
nished with the most delicate instruments, skilled in the 
most refined processes, devotes a laborious life to the study 
of comets, of infusoria, or of a certain series of chemical com- 
pounds. Hence scientific literature grows ever more volu- 
minous, ever more exact, and ever more comprehensive; and 
the man of science is no longer the cloistered recluse, im- 
mured with his folios and parchments, his alembics and 
astrolabes, but an active man of the world, whose discoveries, 
with their actual or probable results, are promptly explained 
to us, and whose labors affect our life, as well the life of action 
as that of thought, immediately and in infinite ways. 

The effect upon general literature is obvious. As the dis- 
coveries of science open new fields to human thought, all 
thinkers are free to enter these; and the reasoner gathers 
new analogies, the orator new illustrations, the poet new 
similes, and the romancer new effects, from the annals of 



378 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

physical discovery, thus popularising dry and abstruse facts, 
and carrying technical details into the domain of the fine 
arts. 

With scientific knowledge, scientific precision and scien- 
tific modes of thought have found their way into all litera- 
ture. Every writer of note analyses and strives to be exact. 
Even the imaginative or sentimental poets can no longer be 
content with the loose generalities and conventionalities, the 
"purling brooks" and "enamelled meads "of the previous 
age, but note with careful precision the exact phenomena of 
light, shade, and color in the water, or the grasses and weeds 
growing in the field. The spirit of analysis has seized the 
novelist, and he studies character and weighs motives, until 
he is prepared to justify every act with an a priori demon- 
stration. 

With the scientific spirit has come in the higher or scien- 
tific criticism. The critic now no longer places himself on 
the judge's seat, to pass a verdict of "good" or "bad" on the 
work before him; he regards it as a phenomenon which he 
is called upon to investigate and explain. Every important 
work holds a definite relation to the literature to which it 
belongs ; arises out of certain causes operating on a certain 
mental constitution. Every literature is the expression of* 
the spiritual and intellectual life of a people, and must be 
studied side by side with their history. 

From the scientific spirit has come the disposition to view 
all things as phenomena, linked together in the grand chain 
of cause and effect, and hence deserving investigation. Thus 
topics which would formerly have been considered insignifi- 
cant are now thought worthy minute study and elaborate 
treatises. Thus, also, greater breadth of views has given 
greater toleration, and a feeling that, instead of anathema- 
tising heretics and dissentients, it is better to study them, as 
something well worth understanding. 



POLITICAL INFLUENCES. 379 

But as an age of persecution is an age of faith, so an age 
of toleration is an age of doubt; and doubt in all matters 
beyond the reach of the senses is one of the most marked 
characteristics of the literature of the present time, especially 
of the higher poetry, which cannot ignore those themes 
which most profoundly affect the soul — the mysteries of Life, 
Death, and Futurity. Hence we see nearly all the higher 
poetry of the present time tinged with despondency, which 
finds varied expression according to the characteristics of the 
poet's mind. 

Another point which we can barely indicate has been the 
current of political events. Long before the middle of the 
century the reaction against the principles of the French 
Revolution was succeeded by a counter-reaction, less violent, 
but more deeply seated. From the passage of the Reform 
Act in 1832 it slowly gained strength, until the Anti-Corn-law 
agitation of 1845, followed by the repeal of the Corn-Laws 
and the Chartist demonstration of 1848, showed what moral 
force could be derived from the combined dissatisfaction of 
large bodies of men, although not voters. From this time 
the "Liberal" party, as it is called, whose tendencies (freely 
outspoken by some of its leaders) are to democracy, has been 
steadily gaining the ascendant, until the bill for the exten- 
sion of the franchise (1867) has made it the dominant power 
in England. Unless some unforeseen cause soon brings 
about the inevitable reaction, it can scarcely fail that before 
very long there will be such an attempt made upon the 
English Constitution as will lead to political convulsions, 
and, possibly, civil war. The consciousness of the gravity 
of this crisis, and the feelings which it invokes, may be 
traced in nearly all the writings of the present day. 

With these preliminary remarks, we shall pass in brief 
review the principal writers of the present generation, be- 
ginning with the poets. 



380 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

Foremost among the poets we must place Alfred Tex- 
nysox, born in Lincolnshire in 1810, and appointed Poet- 
Laureate on Wordsworth's death in 1850. His first produc- 
tions were two volumes of poems, chiefly lyrical, and remark- 
able for brightness of fancy, delicacy of language, and 
melody of versification. In his third volume, which con- 
tained LocTcsley Hall, one or two exquisite idylls, and the 
noble fragment, Morte d' Arthur, he exhibited a far higher 
range of power, and at once attained high reputation with 
the public as well as the critics, which his later works, The 
Princess, In Memoriam, Maud, Enoch Arden, the complete 
series of Idylls of the King, and other poems, have not 
merely maintained, but increased. 

No recent poet, unless it were Keats, shows higher sus- 
ceptibility to beauty in every form, than Tennyson ; and none 
(with the same exception) hasever surpassed him in depicting 
it. None, except Shakspeare, has left such a gallery of pure 
and lovely female figures as Tennyson has painted for us. 
But he probably owes his great and deserved popularity 
chiefly to three things: his exquisite happiness in the use of 
language and rhythm ; the selection of subjects universally 
interesting; and the noble and pure tone of all his writings. 

Eobert Browstixg was born near London in 1812. 
When quite young he visited Italy, and became so much 
attached to that country that he has since made it his resi- 
dence. The influence of Italian scenery, art, history, and 
literature is very obvious in his writings. The bent of 
Browning's mind has always been toward psychology, and 
all his poems, with scarcely one exception, are illustrations 
of the workings of a soul, influencing or influenced by cir- 
cumstances; which makes them essentially dramatic, what- 
ever their form. His first poem, Paracelsus, depicted the 
career of a soul animated with a boundless thirst for knowl- 
edge. His next, Sordello, is the complement of the first, 



MRS. BROWNING. 381 

representing a soul inspired with an enthusiastic love of 
beauty — an artist. His greatest powers, perhaps, are shown 
in his Dramas and Dramatic Lyrics, works of rare genius 
and insight. His other principal works are Men and Women, 
Dramatis Persona, The Ring and the Booh, Balaustion's 
Adventure, etc. 

While no question can be raised as to Browning's extraor- 
dinary poetic genius, it is scarcely possible that he can 
become generally popular, as his themes and treatment are 
frequently so strange and subtle as to be understood only by 
long and careful study; and his style is often marred by 
singularities of phrase, ellipses, enigmatical allusions, which 
make the meaning doubly obscure. By the more intellectual 
class of readers, however, these poems are highly and de- 
servedly admired ; while none can fail to see their depth and 
originality of thought, nor be indifferent to the manly vigor 
and nobleness of the poet's mind. 

Elizabeth Barrett Browxixg (by birth, Elizabeth 
Barrett) was born in London in 1809, and received an edu- 
cation very far superior to what girls usually obtain. For a 
time her studies were directed by an accomplished scholar, 
under whom she acquired a familiarity with the Greek lan- 
guage, such as women rarely attain, and found the choicest 
intellectual food in the masterpieces of the Greek poets and 
philosophers. During a severe illness, when her physician 
had forbidden her all but the lightest reading, she had a 
volume of Plato bound like a novel, that she might pursue 
her favorite studies without molestation. 

In her seventeenth year she published a volume of poems, 
remarkable for their intellectual power and the evidences 
they gave of very high culture. In 1846 she married Eobert 
Browning, and went with him to his Italian home. Her 
works are several volumes of lyrical pieces, a poem on the 
political movement in Italy, called Casa Guidi Windows, 



382 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

and a narrative poem, or rather novel in verse, Aurora 
Leigh. 

Mrs. Browning's works are distinguished by their intel- 
lectuality and their freedom from that weak sentimentalisni 
which is too apt to be the fault of female writers, as well as 
by her lively interest in the great questions of the age in 
which she lived, which made her an enthusiastic, rather than 
a wise partisan, and not always on the right side. Like 
Browning, she paid too little attention to form and finish ; 
and many of her poems, especially of later years, seem in- 
tentionally strained in language and rugged in versification. 
In depth of thought, however, she is perhaps unequalled 
among English female poets. She died at Florence in 1861. 

Arthur Hugh Clough was born in Liverpool in 1819. 
His father removed to the United States in 1823, and Arthur 
lived for several years in Charleston, South Carolina. Be- 
turning to England, his education was completed at Eugby 
and Oxford, where he was distinguished for his talents. He 
afterwards lived for a year or two at Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts, but returned to England, where he received a place in 
the Education Office. He died in Florence in 1861. 

Clough has left but little poetry, but that little is remark- 
able as indicating with especial emphasis the despondency, 
born of doubt, which is so characteristic of this age. His 
most notable poem is Easter Day. 

The same characteristic applies to the poems of dough's 
friend, Matthew Arnold, son of Dr. Arnold, the historian 
of Borne, and former Head-Master of Eugby School. Mr. 
Arnold is more distinguished as a refined, subtle, and 
delicate critic than as a poet; but his poetical writings 
have both power and grace. One of the most beautiful is an 
Elegy on the Death of Clough. 

The most successful narrative poet of the present day after 
Tennyson is William Morris, born in 1835. His most 



JEAN INGELOW— SWINBURNE. 383 

important work is The Earthly Paradise, a series of legends 
of classic and romantic origin. Morris has, to a certain 
degree, imitated the diffuse and careless style of Chaucer, 
rarely aiming at energy of expression or depth of passion. 
There is a great charm in the simplicity of his style ; and 
he is particularly happy in his descriptions of natural 
scenery. As a teller of beautiful tales, he has no superior; 
and his thoughts and fancies are as pure as they are lovely. 

Jeax Ixgelow (born about 1830) has attained great and 
deserved popularity as a charming lyrist. Her poems chiefly 
relate to the affections, and are very graceful and sweet; 
and she is peculiarly happy in the melody and harmony of 
her versification. She is perhaps best known by her Songs 
of Seven, though her Story of Boom, a narrative poem 
founded on the catastrophe of the Deluge, is a more ambi- 
tious attempt. 

Algerxox Charles Swixburxe, the youngest of living 
English poets who have attained any distinction, was born in 
1843, and received his education first in France, and after- 
wards at Eton College and Oxford. At the latter he made 
the acquaintance of Landor, for whom he ever afterwards 
entertained an enthusiastic friendship. His earliest writings 
were dramatic, Tlie Queen Mother, Bosa?nond,an& Chastelard. 
But the poem to which he owed his reputation was Atalanta 
in Ccdydon, a tragedy constructed on the Greek model, and 
a work of great beauty, and showing remarkable powers of 
expression and versification in so young a writer. He has 
since published Lans Veneris, a collection of lyrical poems 
(afterwards suppressed in England on account of their 
immoral tendencies), a Life of Blake, Songs before Sunrise, 
and various essays. In politics Swinburne is an extreme 
Liberal, holding to the wildest theories of "Bed Eepubli- 
canism." In style he is remarkable for the terse rigor of his 
language, which has a slightly antiquated cast; and he is 



384 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

singularly skilful in rhythmical and metrical effects, result- 
ing probably from his familiarity with the Greek dramatists. 
It is to be hoped that the looseness of morality which taints 
some of his works may be corrected by the better judgment 
of maturer age. 

A notable feature of the literature of the present age is the 
extraordinary prominence which has been assumed by the 
novel. Into the causes of this phenomenon we have not space 
to enter ; we can only note the fact, that never has there been 
so insatiate a demand for works of fiction, and never so pro- 
digious a supply. Advantage has been taken of this univer- 
sal appetite, to make fiction the vehicle for views or doctrines 
which have nothing to do with the proper material of fiction ; 
and we have religious novels, sectarian novels, political 
novels, temperance novels, dynastic novels, patriotic novels, 
which seem all to find readers somewhere. Of course, in so 
vast a multitude, the incalculably greater part are worthless, 
or but of ephemeral worth ; but among the great army of 
novelists, we may single out a few whose genius has won 
them deserved celebrity. 

Charles Dickexs was born at Portsmouth, in 1812. His 
parents were not in very easy circumstances, and he received 
but an imperfect education. He does not seem to have ever 
read very extensively ; but his remarkable powers of observa- 
tion furnished the future novelist with more valuable material 
than any to be had from books. He has introduced many 
of the incidents and persons associated with his youthful 
experience, in his novels, but especially in David Copper field. 

Dickens commenced life as a parliamentary reporter, but 
finding that some literary attempts of his were favorably re- 
ceived, he devoted himself to novel-writing as a profession. 
His Pickwick Papers, which appeared in 1836, created quite 
an enthusiasm, by their grotesque fancies and exuberant fun; 
and from this time his career as an author was one of unbro- 



CHARLES DICKENS. 385 

ken success. No English writer of any age has had so vast 
a number of contemporary readers as Dickens. 

His earlier works were almost entirely made up of absurd 
or grim grotesques, grouped about sentimental figures of 
young girls or children, obtaining thus a violent effect of 
contrast. This style he partially modified in Dombey and 
Son and its successors, and drew his characters more from 
the life. In A Tale of Two Cities he has reduced the gro- 
tesque element, and developed great tragic power. His last, 
and unfinished, work, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, seems 
partly a return to his earlier style, and partly an attempt at 
a novel of plot, or mystery-novel. 

The great power of Dickens consists in his faculty of car- 
rying imagination into the details of ordinary life, to such an 
extent that he almost passes into the domain of the fairy-tale, 
where clocks talk and kettles wink, and household utensils 
sit in council. But instead of the elves and gnomes of fairy- 
land, he has surrounded his central figures with a wonder- 
ful population of grotesques, not true to life, but consistent 
with themselves and the laws of their own being, and irre- 
sistibly ludicrous. Seizing some comic feature, such as a 
swagger, an unctuous manner, a snappish mode of speech, 
he exaggerated that, and subordinated the rest of the char- 
acter to it, until the personage became a living personifica- 
tion of that feature. This is the true art of caricature; and 
Dickens's rich imagination enabled him to carry it to a per- 
fection hitherto unknown. 

The weak side of Dickens's writings is their sentimental- 
ity. The sentiment is not insincere, but it seems unreal from 
being over-wrought. But he wrote for a sentimental, and 
not at all critical, public, who liked to be made to cry over 
his little Nells, and little Pauls, and Tiny Tims, and did not 
in the least care whether they were true to nature or correct 
m art. 

17 



386 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

A certain moral basis underlies all Dickens's works, and 
seems to represent his creed. Its teachings are to the effect 
that the main duties of life are to be good-natured and help- 
ful, gentle to children, liberal to the poor, and take a share in 
whatever harmless jollity may be going on. Not a yery lofty 
system of ethics, but not an unwholesome one; and in its 
inculcation there can be no doubt that the works of Dickens 
have been productive of good. He died in June, 1869. 

William Makepeace Thackeeat was born at Calcutta 
in 1811, but was sent in childhood to England for his 
education, which he received at Charterhouse School and 
Cambridge University. 

His first literary attempts were but poorly received by the 
public; and it was not until he had seasoned his keen wit 
with the coarse condiments of slang and grotesque spelling, 
in the pages of Punch, that his writings attracted any 
considerable attention. His powerful novel, Vanity Fair, 
showed the public that a satirist had arisen whom it could 
not pretend to despise. In it — as indeed in nearly all his 
stories — he bitterly lashes the follies, meannesses, pretensions, 
and what he calls the "snobbery" of society, even more 
fiercely than the serious vices. In no novelist is the ethical 
motive so strongly thrust forward ; and he delights to assume 
the attitude of a lay-preacher, declaiming, with keen wit, and 
admirable command of strong, idiomatic language, against 
practices which the pulpit rarely touches. 

Thackeray's characters are as life-like as those of Scott ; 
and usually drawn with great power. His plots are loose 
and rambling; the chief interest centring in the dialogue, 
which is always masterly. In his Henry Esmond, he 
attempted a pure narrative story, in the style and language 
of two centuries ago ; and in this difficult task succeeded 
so wonderfully, that the result is probably the best of all his 
works— certainly the best in an artistic point of view. 



CHARLOTTE BRONTE. 3~7 

Thackeray has also written some admirable Christmas 
stories, full of charming grace and playful irony ; and very 
entertaining lectures on The English Humorists and The Four 
Georges. His chief novels, besides those already mentioned, 
are Pendennis, The Neivcomes, The Virginians, and Lovel 
the Widower. He was engaged on a novel entitled Denis 
Duval, which promised to be one of his best works, when he 
died, in 1863. 

Charlotte Brostte w r as born in Yorkshire, in 1816. 
Her father was a clergyman, in rather straitened circum- 
stances, a man of singular and eccentric character, which, in 
some respects, seemed to border on insanity. She and her 
sisters seem to have lived in a peculiar atmosphere of gloom 
and uneasiness, from which they found refuge in imagination, 
and composed fanciful stories of considerable length, with 
which they amused each other. 

In 1846, the three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, 
published a small volume of poems, under the names of 
Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which met with some favor. 
In the following year Miss Bronte published her novel Jane 
Eyre, in which her remarkable genius was fully shown, and 
which brought her a reputation which surprised her. Her 
other novels are Shirley, Villette, and The Professor, the 
latter her first attempt, but not published until after her 
death. Her sister Emily, who died young, also published 
a singular and very impressive story, called Wuthering 
Heights. 

Miss Bronte's works are remarkable for the delineation of 
powerful and tragic character, and for the effective represen- 
tation of deep and passionate emotion. She is far removed 
from that dilute sentimentality which is too often the staple 
of female novelists. Her genius is strong, original, and 
poetic. She died in 1855, a year after her rdarriage. 

Marian C. Evans (now Mrs. Lewes) is perhaps more 



3SS CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

widely known by her assumed name of George Eliot. 
Her novels, Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, The Mill on 
the Floss, Silas Marner, Bomola, Felix Holt, and Middle- 
march, are distinguished by their vividness of portraiture, 
dramatic situations, and the evidences of a strong and highly 
cultivated intellect. In her, as in Mrs. Browning, are plainly 
seen the advantages which thorough culture gives a naturally 
vigorous female mind. 

Mrs. Lewes has also written a dramatic poem, The 
Spanish Gypsy, and several narrative poems. She is still 
living. 

In the higher department of history, this period has also 
produced several eminent authors, whose writings have had 
great influence. 

Thomas Babingtok Macaulay was born in 1800. On 
completing his education, at Cambridge, he selected the 
legal profession, and was called to the bar in 1825. He had 
early exhibited distinguished talents, and the Whig party, to 
which he attached himself, rewarded his abilities and service 
with a seat in Parliament, where he distinguished himself by 
his eloquence and learning. 

His prodigious memory, vast stores of information, vivid 
imagination, and brilliant style, gained him high distinction 
as an orator, a writer, and a converser ; and all who heard 
or read were fascinated. In 1857 he was raised to the Peer- 
age under the title of Baron Macaulay, but he enjoyed the 
honor but for a brief time, dying in 1859. 

His poetical works, especially his Lays of Ancient Rome, 
enjoyed great popularity for a while. They are rendered 
picturesque by a multitude of striking details, and by a 
certain sonorous diction and career of verse ; but have little 
real depth or power. It is Scott's method applied to Eoman 
themes ; but Scott had the advantage of being able thoroughly 
to enter into the spirit of the Border chieftain and moss- 



THOMAS CARL TLB. 389 

troopers, which no man can do with a people and a civilisa- 
sion so remote as that of Eome under the Tarquins. 

Macaulay's great work is his History of England. The 
brilliancy and vivacity of his style, his picturesque arrange- 
ment of details, his dramatic grouping of figures, fairly 
dazzled the public, who for once found history more delight- 
fully entertaining than any novel, and yielding to the charm, 
were perfectly ready to be led wherever the author pleased. 
This work was of immense advantage to the Whig party ; 
for it was written entirely from a Whig point of view, and in 
a thorough partisan spirit. We cannot believe that Mac- 
aulay ever wilfully distorts facts ; but he sees them altogether 
in a partisan light, and so represents them to his readers. 

Macaulay was one of the chief contributors to the Edin- 
burgh Review, and his essays on literary and other topics 
are among the most brilliant in English literature. 

Thomas Carlyle, one of the most vigorous and original 
of contemporary writers, was born in Scotland in 1795, and 
received his education at Edinburgh. His original intention 
was to enter the ministry of the Free Kirk, but he changed 
his purpose in favor of a literary career. He took early ad- 
vantage of that taste for German literature of which we have 
noted the rise in our sketch of Scott ; and, finding it pecu- 
liarly congenial to his habits of thought, soon became a 
thorough master of it, and has done more than any other of 
his contemporaries to introduce the knowledge of it into 
England by translations, essays, and critical papers. 

As a writer, Carlyle is pre-eminent for depth and earnest- 
ness of purpose, and for the power and originality of his 
language. His critical productions are wonderful for insight 
and luminousness; and his historical writings are perhaps 
the most vivid and dramatic in existence. 

Carlyle's mind is eminently religious, and his theological 
and biblical studies have left a deep impress upon his 



390 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS. 

thoughts and language, especially notable where he contem- 
plates the great problems of human .life and destiny, duty, 
moral responsibility, etc., where, in the intensity of his 
earnestness, he often writes much like a Hebrew prophet. 
His style is peculiarly his own, strange, rugged, foreign- 
looking, but always rich and powerful. He has little or no 
sympathy with modern "Liberal" ideas, such as "the equal- 
ity of all men," the beneficence of democracy, etc., which he 
finds absurd in theory and ruinous in practice. 

His chief works are A History of the French Revolution, 
A History of Frederick the Great of Prussia, Life of 
Cromwell, Life of Sterling, Sartor Resartus (a singular and 
powerful treatise on modern social and ethical problems), 
Past and Present, Heroes and Hero- Worship, and various 
reviews, essays, pamphlets, and translations. His writings 
have exerted a more powerful influence upon the think- 
ers of the time than those of any other contemporary 
author. 

Geokge G-eote was born in 1794, at Clay Hall, in Kent. 
He did not receive a university education, but acquired his 
extensive learning and brilliant culture chiefly by private 
study. He was engaged in active as well as literary life, 
being a member of a wealthy banking firm, and for some 
time a representative of the City of London in Parliament. 
His great work, which may justly rank among the master- 
pieces of English historians, is his History of Greece. To 
this great task he has brought all the resources of learning, 
and of the clearest intelligence, stimulated by an ardent 
admiration for republican institutions. It is not too much 
to say that of the many who have handled this theme none 
has so thoroughly comprehended, or so clearly explained, the 
working of Athenian democracy, in its rise, its glory, and its 
decline, or given us so intelligible a picture of the public life 
and political relations of the Greeks. Mr. Grote also pub- 



■ 



FRO UDE—R USKIjV. 391 

lished a volume on Socrates, his philosophy, followers, and 
adversaries. He died in 1871. 

James Axthoxy Froude was born in Devonshire in 
1818, and educated at Oxford. His principal work is his 
History of England, from the fall of Wolsey (1529) to the 
death of Elizabeth (1603). His selection of this period was 
determined by the fact that in it is contained the separation 
of the English Church from Eome, and the complete estab- 
lishment of a Xational Church. Froude is a strong partisan, 
and this circumstance must be borne in mind in reading his 
history, which is rendered attractive by the vivacity and 
earnestness of the writer, his strong, well-chosen language, 
abundance of interesting details, and vividness of descrip- 
tion. He has also published a volume of thoughtful essays. 
Mr. Froude is still living. 

We close the series with a writer who does not exactly 
belong to either of the classes hitherto mentioned, but whose 
works are too important to be passed over in silence. Johx 
Buskin was born in London in 1819. He studied and took 
his degree at Oxford, where he also gained the Newdegate 
prize for poetry ; and after quitting the university pursued 
the study of art under the celebrated landscape-painters 
Copley Fielding and J. D. Harding. In 1843 he published 
(anonymously) a volume of critical remarks on contemporary 
art and artists, under the title Modern Painters ; and after 
its publication resided for some time in Italy. In 1849 he 
published a work entitled The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 
or illustrations of the vital laws on which all true architect- 
ure depends ; and in 1851-3, the three volumes of The Stones 
of Venice, showing the relations of Venetian architecture to 
the rise, glory, and decline of the Eepublic, and illustrated 
with fine engravings from drawings by the author. 

Modem Painters — afterwards increased to five large vol- 
umes — is Kuskin's greatest work, and has been of incalcula- 



392 CONTEMPORARY WRITERS, 

ble value in instructing the public in the true principles, 
meaning, and yalue of art. In no other work on a similar 
subject can be found such precision and comprehensiveness 
or knowledge, such patient faithfulness of investigation, or 
such wealth of original thought, clothed in language at once 
so eloquent and so lucid. His rich and harmonious style, 
more than that of any other contemporary writer, reminds 
us of the grand periods and splendid cadences of Milton's 
prose. 

Besides works on art, Euskin has written a considerable 
number of treatises on ethical and other subjects, which have 
met with far less favor, partly on account of the unpopu- 
larity of his political views. "Liberal ideas," as they are 
called, are just now in the ascendant in England ; but Eus- 
kin has no faith in the vaunted future of democracy. This 
is natural enough: his studies have lain rather among God's 
works than man's devices ; and nowhere has he seen any- 
thing like the rule of the multitude, but everywhere beauti- 
ful order and beneficent law; nowhere an ordinance of 
universal equality, but all things appointed in their fitting 
places and fulfilling their allotted tasks with gracious su- 
premacy and graceful subordination. 



INDEX 



PAGE 

Absalom and AchitopTiel 194 

Addison, Joseph 217 

Alfred (King) 21 

Arnold, Matthew 382 

Ascham, Roger 71 

Bacon, Francis (Lord) 130 

Ballads 121 

Barrow, Isaac 144 

Beaumont, Francis 115 

Beckford, William 373 

Bede 20 

Bentley, Richard 214 

Berkeley, George (Bishop) 183 

Blackioood's Magazine 361 

Boccacio 41 

Boethius • 12 

Boyle, Robert 184 

Bronte, Charlotte 387 

Browne, Sir Thomas 135 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett. .381 

Browning, Robert '. 380 

Buckhurst, Lord 74 

Bunyan, John 276 

Burke, Edmund 253 

Butler, Samuel 162 

Byron, Lord 325 



PAGE 

Campbell, Thomas .344 

Canterbury Tales , . . . . 50 

Captain Singleton 245 

Carlyle, Thomas 389 

Cassiodorus 12 

Caxton, William 55 

Chatterton, Thomas 207 

Chaucer, Geoffrey 45 

Chillingworth, William 141. 

Clough, Arthur Hugh 382 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 311 

Collins, William 207 

Congreve, William 170 

Cowley, Abraham 160 

Cowper, William 211 

Crabbe, George 343 

Cudworth, Ralph 179 

Curse of Kehama 320 

Decline and Fall of the Roman 

Empire 264 

Defense of Poesie 77 

Defoe, Daniel 243 

De Quincey, Thomas 353 

Deserted Village 298 

Dickens, Charles 384 

Dorset, Earl of 164 



394 



INDEX. 



PAGE 

Dryden, John 192 

Ecclesiastical Polity 128 

Ed.2;eworth, Maria 375 

Edinburgh Review 358 

Essays of Elia 349 

Euphues 126 

Evans, Marian C 387 

Faerie Queene 79 

Farquhar, George 173 

Faustus 95 

Fielding, Henry 279 

Fronde, James Anthony 391 

Gay, John 205 

" George Eliot" 388 

Gibbon, Edward 261 

Gilbert, William. 129 

Goldsmith, Oliver 293 

Gower, John 53 

Gray, Thomas 206 

Grote, George 390 

Gulliver's Travels 238 

Halley, Edmund 189 

Hazlitt, William 351 

Hemans, Mrs 345 

Hobbes, Thomas 177 

Hooker, Richard 127 

Hudibras. 162 

Hunt, Leigh 344 

Hume, David 258 

Ingelow, Jean 383 

James I. (King) 139 

Jeffrey, Francis 358 

Johnson, Samuel 227 

Jonson, Ben 1 07 

" Junius" 250 

Keats, John 338 



PAGB 

Lamb, Charles 347 

Landon, Letitia E 345 

Landor, Walter Savage 343 

Langland, William 38 

Layamon 36 

Lee, Nathaniel 175 

Locke, John 180 

Love for Love 173 

Lovelace, Richard 164 

L yly> ^oim 126 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington 

(Lord) 388 

Marlowe, Christopher 94 

Massinger, Philip 118 

Maundeviile, Sir John 36 

Milton, John 150 

Minot, Lawrence 36 

Mitford, Mary Russell 375 

Moore, Thomas 344 

More, Sir Thomas. 62 

Morris, William 382 

Newton, Sir Isaac 186 

Norton, Thomas 93 

Otway, Thomas 175 

Paradise Lost 153 

Parnell, Thomas 205 

Petrarch 41 

Piers Ploughman .38 

Pope, Alexander 197 

Prior, Matthew 204 

Quarterly Beview 359 

Radcliffe, Anne 374 

Raleigh, Sir Walter 83 

Basselas 231 

Richardson, Samuel 278 

Robert of Gloucester 36 

Robertson, William 261 

Rogers, Samuel 345 



INDEX. 



395 



PAGE 

Romances 35 

Ruskin, John 391 

Saxon Chronicle 33 

Scott, Sir Walter 364 

Shakspeare, William 97 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 332 

Sidney, Sir Philip 76 

Smollett, Tobias 285 

Southey, Robert 317 

Spectator 219 

Spenser, Edmund 76 

Steele, Richard 223 

Sterne, Laurence 287 

Suckling, Sir John 164 

Surrey, Earl of 63 

Swift, Jonathan 234 

Swinburne, Algernon Charles. 383 

Tale of a Tub 234 

Taylor, Jeremy 142 

Temple, Sir William 213 



PAGE 

Tennyson, Alfred 380 

Thackeray, William Make- 
peace 386 

Thomson, James 205 

Tom Jones 282 

Tristram Shandy 290 

Udal, Nicholas 92 

Yanbrugh, Sir John 173 

Vicar of Wakefield '.295 

Waller, Edmund 166 

Westminster Review 359 

Wilson, John .361 

Wordsworth, William 306 

Wyat, Sir Thomas 63 

Wycherley, William 170 

Wycliffe, John 39 

Young, Edward 205 



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